Topical Symposium 5
The concept of a circular economy is a key element towards reaching the sustainable development goals (SDG) from the United Nations (UN) and comprises incentives to reuse existing products, instead of disposal and relying on continuous global production for replacement. ‘The goods of today are the resources of tomorrow at yesterday’s resource prices’. Thus, natural resources can be used more efficiently, and also new markets will evolve in a circular economy. In the last decades, the research and development within surface engineering has been focused mainly on the enhancement of surface properties by the design of multifunctional coatings and surfaces, while the sustainability of such processes and products is usually neglected. However, the approach of a circular economy for surface engineering requires innovative rethinking along the lines of reducing, reusing, repairing, and recycling. These strategies exhibit both ecological as well as economic incentives, which means that the significant lowering of greenhouse gas emissions during production is closely connected to business models for the future. Sustainability measures have been widely implemented and exploited for immediate actions to enhance the longevity of products and materials within industrial surface engineering in the last few years. On the other hand, insights and knowledge from basic academic research offer additional opportunities to enhance the sustainability of surface engineering products.
Hence, this topical session provides a bridging platform for the exchange on circular economy strategies for surface engineering between industry and academia. This exchange will benefit from innovative contributions on e.g., approaches for life cycle analyses, reduction of energy and material input, re-usage of bi-products as well as repair and recycling of materials.
TS5. Invited Speakers:
- Dominik Blösch, Platit AG, Switzerland, “Reprocessing High Performance Cutting Tools – Performance Plus with Dedicated Coating Solutions”
- Lars Johnson, Sandvik Coromant, Sweden, “Perspectives on Sustainability of Coated Cutting Tools”
- Uwe Schleinkofer, CERATIZIT Austria GmbH, Austria, “Coated Cemented Carbides – Tooling a Sustainable Future”