Sustainable design driven philosophy: case studies of sustainable materials and processing

The amount of waste from primary mining and industrial side streams is huge and it is expected to increase in the near future. At the same time there is scarcity of some critical materials, and the specific high technology metals consumption is expected to increase considerably. New sustainable material solutions processed through refining from waste in order to substitute scarce or critical materials are under development. Furthermore, sustainable processing and manufacturing techniques are strongly needed to increase energy and material efficiency. New processing techniques (mechanical,thermomechanical and thermochemical processes) enable new material solutions refined from waste and industrial side stream based materials. The energy-saving alternatives are Self-propagating High-temperature Synthesis (SHS) or low temperature chemical (and chemically activated) processes. In this study the effect of sustainable choices in material selection, processing and manufacturing phases were discussed though case studies and novel methods for sustainable material design were introduced. In some cases material can be processed directly to 'ready' component which shortens dramatically the traditional manufacturing routes. Material selection software was utilized including database of commercial material properties, average material price and relevant indicators of material "eco" properties.