Science4Innovate

During the last years, the term " circular economy " (CE) has appeared more or less everywhere. Regarding chemical processes, the ultimate fashion consists in re-design all the acitvities related with some kind of industrial production in terms of exploitation of wastes as raw materials. Wastes can arise from the same process or from other processes. This system is often presented in opposition of the old "linear economy" (LE) model, where the wastes produced during a process represent a cost. In CE model, wastes become raw materials in a close loop producing economical and environmental advantages (Figure 1). Linear VS Circular Economy models. The applicability to the CE scheme is limited by the availability of oportune raw materials, processes and technologies. Thus, the number of productions which can be developed in a circular economy fashion is limited. Finding new combination of raw materials and processes which can be good candoidates for th...