Abstract
SummaryWith increased understanding of the effects of human activities on the environment and added awareness of the increasing societal value of natural resources, researchers have begun to focus on the characterization of elemental cycles. Indium has captured significant attention due to the potential for supply shortages and nonexistent recycling at end of life. Such a combination of potentially critical features is magnified for countries that depend on imports of indium, notably many European countries. With the aims of analyzing the dynamics of material flows and of estimating the magnitude of secondary indium sources available for recycling, the anthropogenic indium cycle in Europe has been investigated by material flow analysis. The results showed that the region is a major consumer of finished goods containing indium, and the cumulative addition of indium in urban mines was estimated at about 500 tonnes of indium. We discuss these results from the perspective of closing the metal cycle in the region. Securing access to critical raw materials is a priority for Europe, but the preference for recycling metal urban mines risks to remain only theoretical for indium unless innovations in waste collection and processing unlock the development of technologies that are economically feasible and environmentally sustainable.
Highlights
Growing interest in understanding the effects of human activities on the environment and added awareness of the societal value of natural resources in the form of materials, energy, space, and food (Drielsma et al 2016; Dewulf et al 2015) have brought the research to focus on the characterization of elemental cycles (Clift and Druckman 2016)
We elicited the opinion of experts to settle exogenous variables and we applied the law of conservation of matter, which constitutes the basis of any Material flow analysis (MFA) study, to balance for inflows and outflows along the metal’s life cycle
We estimated the amount of indium utilized to fabricate domestic semifinished goods; second, we identified the list of finished goods that contain indium and gathered European production statistics (i.e., Prodcom) (Eurostat 2017b); indium contents were applied to calculate the amount of indium demanded by European manufacturers to create finished goods
Summary
Growing interest in understanding the effects of human activities on the environment and added awareness of the societal value of natural resources in the form of materials, energy, space, and food (Drielsma et al 2016; Dewulf et al 2015) have brought the research to focus on the characterization of elemental cycles (Clift and Druckman 2016). These complementary perspectives require profound cognition of relationships between human and natural systems. The most attention has been given to anthropogenic cycles of metals used in the largest amounts, such as iron, aluminum, and copper, to unveil patterns of material production and consumption and to settle strategies for securing long-term supply (Chen and Graedel 2012; Elshkaki et al 2016; Ciacci et al 2014; Pauliuk and Muller 2014; Allwood et al 2010).
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