Mitigating issues of future wastes: enhancing resource productivity in emerging technologies

Humanity faces the threat of irreversible and significant climate change and imminent global resource security crises for many materials, particularly ‘critical’ raw materials (CRMs) which are vital components of the very ‘green’ technologies upon which climate change mitigation strategies heavily rely. Enhanced global resource efficiency is necessary along with widespread deployment of green technologies, which creates greater demand for CRM primary resources. Adoption of circular economy provides a means to mitigate these issues whilst enhancing the retention and productivity of material resources within economies and mitigating issues resulting from wastes arising from the lifecycles of these technologies, which at their end-of-life will become waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).

Progress in resource efficiency in throughout emerging technologies lifecycles will require multi-disciplinary collaborative R&I between academia and industries involved in all stages of product lifecycles; and support from additional key stakeholders including government, professional bodies, NGOs and consultancies. ‘Mitigating issues of future wastes: enhancing resource productivity in emerging technologies’ will bring together these partners to explore challenges in lifecycle optimisation of emerging products which generate, store and use electricity. The event will provide an opportunity for industry and other crucial stakeholders to engage with the world class UK research base in order to:

• Identify opportunities to… ‘reduce raw material demand and waste in our energy systems and lifecycles of emerging technologies, and create well-functioning markets for secondary materials’.
• Identify current or best practice in lifecycles of products.
• Examine key challenges for lifecycle optimisation of emerging energy generating, storage and using products which chemistry can help to address.
• Establish new links between academia & industry which enable collaborative demand driven R&I to tackle these lifecycle challenges.
• Provide an overview of funding and other support mechanisms for collaborative R&I in these areas.

The event will feature the presentation of the 2017 Sustainable energy Award to Professor Javier Pérez-Ramírez, ETH Zurich, who will deliver his invited talk ‘Catalysis Engineering for Sustainable Technologies’.

Poster sessions and networking opportunities will feature during breaks, lunch and an evening drinks reception which will also provide further opportunities for discussion between attendees. There will also be opportunities for attendees to post biographies of themselves indicating the type of support they may be able to lend to collaborative R&I in this area, and support sought from collaborators. Please submit all biographies and poster abstracts to Rhys Charles by the deadlines indicated.

The Royal Society of Chemistry

Royal Society of Chemistry, The Royal Society of Chemistry, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BA, United Kingdom