Manuscript Topics

In the previous decade, global agreement has been established on the need to decrease the impact of human activities on the environment, particularly via the Paris Agreement and the establishment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 (COP21, 2015; UNDP, 2020). In order to achieve these global goals, while at the same time maintain and stimulate economic prosperity, we need to move towards more responsible consumption and production – which is also specifically formulated as one of the SDGs. This can only be achieved by a combination of strategies, including moving towards a more circular economy and developing cleaner technologies.

Much advancement has been achieved in the development of technologies with decreased environmental footprints, such as renewable energy technologies, hybrid and electric mobility, energy-efficient buildings, appliances, and lighting technologies. While these technologies achieved significant emission reductions during use phase compared to current practices, most of them rely on innovative products/processes, leading to higher demand of raw materials, both in terms of mass and diversity of materials required.

One could therefore speak of a shift of environmental burdens from the use phase of these technologies to the primary production and disposal phase. Material recycling could, to a certain extent, minimize this burden shifting. However, many of the metals used in clean technologies report very low recycling rates (UNEP, 2011). Recycling is technically and economically challenging due to a lack of operational infrastructure and the complexity of new products and alloys, mixing large numbers of metals that are difficult to separate (UNEP, 2013). The recyclability of products should therefore already be considered in the product design phase and investments in suitable recycling processes should be made in parallel to technological innovation.

To ensure that the environmental impacts caused by material extraction and processing and final recycling or disposal do not off-set the environmental gains obtained during the use phase of an innovative technology, a Life Cycle perspective should be applied. Conducting a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), as standardized by ISO 14040 and 14044, provides a full overview of the environmental impacts of a technology while taking into account the raw material extraction phase, manufacturing, use, and end-of-life treatment, which therefore allows for an accurate comparison of supposedly clean technologies with their conventional substitutes.

Conducting LCAs on new technologies as well as recycling scenarios bring along multiple challenges. The special issue “LCA of Clean Technologies and Recycling” aims to investigate and discuss the challenges and the complexity behind the evaluation of environmental performances of clean technologies and recycling routes. To achieve this, the journal welcomes submissions covering, but not limited to:

• Ex-ante LCA and upscaling models of emerging technologies
• Development and collection of inventory data for LCA on innovative technologies, including inventory data on critical raw material extraction and processing and updated recycling rates
• LCA of mining, refining, and material processing activities
• LCA of current and innovative recycling processes
• LCA of recycled and recyclable materials
• Methodological developments in LCA (e.g., new impact assessment framework) allowing to better reflect the environmental performance of technological developments and recycling
• LCA of policies that stimulate investments in cleaner technologies and recycling
• LCA and other evaluation tools in multi-criteria decision-making processes towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
• Multicriteria analysis including environmental (LCA), economic (LCC) and social (S-LCA) performances of clean technologies

References
[1] COP21 (2015). Paris agreement short glossary. http://www.cop21.gouv.fr/en/les-mots-de-laccord/.
[2] UNDP (2020). Sustainable Development Goals. https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html.
[3] UNEP (2011). Recycling rates of Metals - A Status Report, A Report of the Working Group on the Global Metal Flows to the International Resource Panel. Graedel, T. E.; Allwood, J.; Birat, J.-P.; Reck, B.K.; Sibley, S.F.; Sonnemann, G.; Buchert, M.; Hagelüken, C.
[4] UNEP (2013). Metal Recycling: Opportunities, Limits, Infrastructure, A Report of the Working Group on the Global Metal Flows to the International Resource Panel. Reuter, M. A.; Hudson, C.; van Schaik, A.; Heiskanen, K.; Meskers, C.; Hagelüken, C.

Different types of manuscripts are welcome, including original research articles and critical review papers.
The paper, if officially accepted by AIMS Clean Technologies & Recycling, will be published in open access form soon after professional editing. No publication fee will be charged from the authors. If this is of interest, you are welcome to send a tentative title to the editorial office (cleantech@aimsiences.org) for checking the suitability.

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Please submit your manuscript to online submission system
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