Comprehensive impact assessment on resource and environment of emerging recycling technologies for waste materials: Evidence from waste rare earth phosphors recycling

Abstract

The recycling of waste materials has dual attributes of resource and environment, and current technical evaluation methods are difficult to balance the comprehensive impact of resource and environment, failing to meet the selection requirements of emerging recycling technologies. Focusing on the emerging recycling technology for rare earth phosphors, we developed a resource and environment composite assessment model, employing emergy accounting principles to uniformly quantify resource inputs and environmental impacts. The results indicated that the composite emergy of resource and environment of the recycling technologies is reduced by over 89.05 % compared to that of natural ores development technology. Moreover, the synergistic recycling of zinc (Zn) along with yttrium oxide (Y2O3) achieves an additional emergy reduction by 88.37 %. The resource emergy of natural ores development technology accounts for 95.15 %, indicating its heavy reliance on resource depletion. Due to the utilization of various chemicals, the recycling technologies exhibit stronger environment attribute.