Many materials can only be recycled a limited number of times because of physicaldegradation (paper and board), chemical degradation (plastics), or impurities (severalmetals). Management of the quality of materials is a key to high long-term recycling ratesand, hence, to the sustainable future. This key includes several elements, such as:retaining the quality of materials in the production and use of products; retaining thequality of materials in the recycling processes; and using high-quality materials onlywhen it is required. Pinch analysis is a set of methods to optimize physical flows bytaking the quality into account. It was originally developed for minimizing the energydemand in process industries. It has been adapted for optimization also of water andsolvents flows. A Japanese research group applied part of the method on flows of steelwithin Japan and globally. We present a pilot study that illustrates how all the elementsof the basic pinch approach can be applied to global systems of material flows. Ourmaterial pinch analysis (MPA) distinguishes between three categories of steelapplications, each with its own requirements on the material quality: rolled steel,sections and re-bar. Copper in wiring etc. increases the copper content of steel recycledfrom machinery and eventually restricts the recyclability of the steel in a global systemwhere steel use does not increase. This is important because an MPA is mainly relevantwhen impurities or other quality aspects restrict the recycling rate. Our quantitativeresults should not be considered accurate reflections of the reality, because the pilotstudy is to a large extent based on assumptions and crude data. However, the model gives afirst indication that the maximum recycling rate of steel is approximately 80% in apotential future when steel use does not increase, unless technology is improved. A fullMPA with more thorough data collection would more accurately define the maximum long-termrecycling rate and the minimum quantity of ore-based material. In addition, a full MPAwould give information on for what applications ore-based material should be used, andwhat scrap flows should be discarded rather than recycled. Such information can beimportant for policy-making aiming at increased resource efficiency. If it is importantfor policy-making it is also likely to be important to industrial companies that can beaffected by policies.

Recently, the issue of sustainable resource management has been increasingly recognized.Economic growth of human activity is associated with a rapid rise in the use of resourcesin our economy, and society has a potential environmental impact. The UNEP InternationalResource Panel (IRP) pointed out the importance of decoupling resource use and negativeenvironmental impacts from economic activity (UNEP IRP 2011). In order tooptimize the material cycles and increase resource efficiency, material flow analysis(MFA) is a powerful tool to understand the resource consumption and material cycle in thenational economy. In this study, we present the results of global material flow analysisof nickel, which is one of the important resources for reducing energy use andCO2 emission inour society, and discuss the importance and possibility of controlling its resourcelogistics. This study also introduces the challenge of identifying the land-use changes innickel mining sites by a remote-sensing technique, and knowledge to increase the resourceefficiency in metal recycling based on the metallurgical thermodynamic approach. Theresults indicated the importance of recovery of nickel in recycling policies forend-of-life (EoL) vehicles and constructions. Improvement in EoL sorting technologies andimplementation of designs for recycling/disassembly at the manufacturing phase are needed.Possible solutions include development of sorting processes for steel scrap andintroduction of easier methods for identifying the composition of secondary resources.Recovery of steel scrap with a high alloy content will reduce primary inputs of alloyingelements and contribute to more efficient resource use.

Concerns for climate change and declining oil reserves lead to a shift of transportationsystems in many industrial countries. However, alternative drive concepts contain to someextent critical raw materials. Since the availability of certain raw materials could bedecisive for the success of emerging technologies, concerns are growing about thepotential limitation of resources. This brought about a growing attention to the subjectsof criticality and resource security of raw materials by science, policy and industry.Four of the resulting surveys are described in terms of their framing of criticality,their indicators for evaluating criticality, and their rankings of potentially criticalraw materials. Critical raw materials are used in alternative drive concepts because oftheir specific properties. The focus of our work lies on batteries for electric vehicleswith special attention to lithium-ion batteries being one of the most promising candidatesfor energy storage there. Lithium-ion batteries use as major cathode materials lithium,manganese and cobalt, all of which are potential critical. A material flow model of theglobal manganese cycle is developed. It could be identified that there is a lack ofrelevant data for processes and flows. The lack of data impedes a comprehensive view andtherefore no final conclusions could be drawn, which advice the need for further research.Using manganese as an example, it could be illustrated how material flow analysis cancontribute to compiling relevant preparatory work that can subsequently serve as a basisfor a prospective support of a criticality evaluation and to inform stakeholders andpolicy makers about the effectiveness of various interventions to reduce the risk or theeffects of supply chain disruptions.

In this presentation, the development of a simulation model that can examine thelong-term strategy of materials industries, called a material strategy model, is proposed.This model has the following structure: first, the world is divided into a number of areasand a scenario for the demand for end products in the future in each area is provided.Then, the system required to realize the scenario and to minimize CO2 emissionor the total cost is calculated using this model. In other words, the optimization toselect processes in society to minimize total CO2 emission or total cost iscarried out. As a result, the possibility of the long-term scenario; for example, theamount of car production based on population increase and GDP growth, can be discussed byconsidering CO2 emission and consumption of resources. A few simulation modelsto discuss long-term strategy have been developed in the field of energy system studies.In the energy system model, only a few resources such as coal, oil, natural gas anduranium are considered, but, in the material strategy model, it is necessary to examinemany materials and resources. In addition, the material strategy model should have anenergy model as one part of the model. As a first step, a prototype model mainly focusingon iron and steel with their alloys should be developed to show the capability to developthe whole model.