Life cycle assessment of emerging technologies on value recovery from hard disk drives

Jin, Hongyue; Frost, Kali; Sousa, Inês Pereira de; Ghaderi, Hossein; Bevan, A.I.; Zakotnik, M.; Handwerker, Carol A.

doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.104781

Cited by 34 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…More information about the LCA unit process data, assumptions, and methods are available in Jin et al 37 These results demonstrate that circular strategies which maintain the highest value of materials (i.e., reuse) offer the greatest environmental benefits, which decrease as materials flow toward the outer circles (e.g., remanufacture and metals recovery) depicted in Fig. 1.…”

Section: Dstmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…DST left axis, reported in terms of global warming potential (GWP) in CO 2 equivalents. 37 These results were used to compare among CBMs proposed in the demonstration projects (e.g., wipe and reuse an HDD, reuse magnet assemblies (MAs), produce new magnets from EoL magnets, and recover REEs), and other emerging technologies that may be viable for additional value recovery from HDDs (e.g., precious metals).…”

Section: Dstmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Avoided GWP of each recovery option compared to the baseline of shredding HDDs for mixed aluminum (shown in orange line) and the recovered value (shown in blue bars). 6,8,37 MA: magnet assembly; REE = rare-earth element. Demo 3 was not included because the system boundary is beyond HDDs (e.g., gap motor).…”

Section: Decision Trees/flowcharts (Dts)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Image reused with permission. 37 As such, in the DT diagram ( Fig. 5), each node is used to evaluate the producttests that may be needed, data to consider, and criteria to apply.…”

Section: Decision Trees/flowcharts (Dts)mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

The use of decision support tools to accelerate the development of circular economic business models for hard disk drives and rare-earth magnets

Frost

Jin

Olson

et al. 2020

MRS Energy & Sustainability

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Dstmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Dstmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Decision Trees/flowcharts (Dts)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Image reused with permission. 37 As such, in the DT diagram ( Fig. 5), each node is used to evaluate the producttests that may be needed, data to consider, and criteria to apply.…”

Section: Decision Trees/flowcharts (Dts)mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The use of decision support tools to accelerate the development of circular economic business models for hard disk drives and rare-earth magnets

Frost

Jin

Olson

et al. 2020

MRS Energy & Sustainability

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Appropriate circular economy strategies such as reuse, remanufacturing and recycling can reduce the reliance on virgin materials 155 and potentially help meet demand entirely in the next few decades 156 . However, some suggest that recycling products such as LIBs and hard disk drives do not necessarily provide environmental benefits, depending on a range of factors, such as the material recovery rate and processing technologies 157,158 . Therefore, more research is still needed to better understand the environmental performance of technology materials produced from secondary sources compared with primary sources.…”

Section: Circular Economy Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards sustainable extraction of technology materials through integrated approaches

Pell

Tijsseling²,

Goodenough

et al. 2021

Nat Rev Earth Environ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The transition to a low-carbon economy will be material-intensive. Production of these materials (from mining to manufacturing) incurs environmental costs that vary widely, depending on the geology, mineralogy, extraction routes, type of product, purity of product, background system or manufacturing infrastructure. Understanding the impacts of the raw materials underpinning the low-carbon economy is essential for eliminating any dissonance between the benefits of renewable technologies and the impacts associated with the production of the raw materials. In this Review, we propose an integrated life cycle assessment and geometallurgical approach to optimize the technical performance and reduce the environmental impact of raw material extraction. Life cycle assessments are an effective way of understanding the system-wide impacts associated with material production, from ore in the ground to a refined chemical product ready to be used in advanced technologies such as batteries. In the geometallurgy approach, geologists select exploration targets with resource characteristics that lend themselves to lower environmental impacts, often considering factors throughout the exploration and development process. Combining these two approaches allows for more accurate and dynamic optimization of technology materials resource efficiency, based on in situ ore properties and process simulations. By applying these approaches at the development phase of projects, a future low-carbon economy can be achieved that is built from ingredients with a lower environmental impact.

show abstract

Regionalized chemical footprint method to identify aquatic ecotoxicity hotspots of hard disk drive rare‐earth magnets

Hua

2022

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The chemical footprint (ChF), which combines life cycle assessment (LCA) and quantitative risk assessment principles, shows promise for exploring localized toxicity impacts of manufacturing processes, which is not achievable with LCA alone. An updated ChF method was applied to the global annual production of a hard disk drive (HDD) rare-earth element (REE) magnet assembly, assuming a supply chain in East and Southeast Asia. Existing REE magnet assembly LCA inventories were combined with supplier manufacturing locations to create a cradle-to-gate spatial unit process inventory. Emissions from the electricity grid for each manufacturing site were downscaled to hydrobasins of interest using the Global Power Plant Database. The predicted no effect concentration (PNEC) was chosen as the ecotoxicity pollution boundary to determine the threshold for dilution of each chemical of concern (CoC) and to calculate the ChF. Finally, a high-resolution hydrological database provided volumes of the freshwater river reach draining each hydrobasin and was used to calculate the dilution capacity (DC), that is, the volume required to remain at or below the PNEC for each CoC. The total ChF of annual REE magnet assembly production was 6.91E12 m 3 , with hotspots in watersheds in China and Thailand where REEs are processed and steel metalworking takes place. Metals were the primary CoCs, with cadmium and chromium(VI) comprising 77% of total ChF. Dilution factors ranged from 5E−09 to 9E + 03 of the DC of the waterbody, reflecting the spatial variability in both emissions and DC. An advanced ChF method was demonstrated for HDD REE magnets. Scoping is a key step required to reduce model complexity. The use of regionalized fate factors and standardized hydrological data sets improves the comparability of ChFs across hydrobasins. Additional work to combine data sets into readily available tools is needed to increase usability and standardization of the ChF method and promote wider adoption.

show abstract

Life cycle assessment of emerging technologies on value recovery from hard disk drives

Cited by 34 publications

References 33 publications

The use of decision support tools to accelerate the development of circular economic business models for hard disk drives and rare-earth magnets

The use of decision support tools to accelerate the development of circular economic business models for hard disk drives and rare-earth magnets

Towards sustainable extraction of technology materials through integrated approaches

Regionalized chemical footprint method to identify aquatic ecotoxicity hotspots of hard disk drive rare‐earth magnets

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About