Research project on circular economy receives FNR grant

CircuRement (promote resource recoverability by aligning product designs with end-of-life process chains), a project carried out within the Department of Engineering, has received the FNR JUMP grant. 

FNR JUMP aims to bridge the technical and funding gap between research driven discoveries and their commercialisation. It supports young researchers in proof-of-concept activities, advancing research-driven technologies towards the eventual creation of a start-up.

About the CircuRement project

Global consumption of materials such as biomass, fossil fuels, metals and minerals is expected to double in the next 40 years, while annual waste generation will increase by 70% by 2050. If lifestyles continue to be linear, humanity will consume as many resources as there are 3 Earths by 2050 (Overshoot Day Luxembourg: February 14). To prevent this, closing resource loops and keeping resources in the loop for as long as possible are cited as key goals of the Circular Economy (CE). The huge amounts of packaging waste produced every year (79 million tons/ year in Europe – fun fact: this could cover Luxembourg with 12cm of waste each year) are a crucial problem in this context.

The CircuRement project, which is the continuation of Dr. Jeff Mangers’ PhD thesis, proposes a solution to this problem in collaboration with his colleagues Dr. Sri Kolla, Alexej Simeth and their business advisor Marc Jacobs. By analysing the respective recovery processes (e.g., sorting or recycling) and digitally replicating them, the End-of-Life (EoL) knowledge gained is made available to product designers, thus increasing the resource recoverability of products. The goal is to anticipate a circular flow of resources by reflectively aligning product design with the relevant EoL infrastructure.

If you are interested in more information or collaboration, please do not hesitate to contact the project team.