The Industrial Science Report: How the circular economy is influencing sustainability technology for manufacturing
Key Highlights
- Recycled metals require strict measurement standards to prevent impurities that can compromise product performance and reliability.
- AI-powered sorting technologies improve the purity of recycled plastics, enabling their seamless integration into manufacturing supply chains.
- Investments in applied research facilities support the transition to zero-emission vehicles and clean energy systems.
- Novel energy-harvesting water purification systems simultaneously produce clean water and hydrogen.
- Enhancing carbon transfer in algae cultivation can turn emissions into biofuels, offering scalable solutions for industrial carbon management.
Industrial sustainability will need more than compliance with emissions targets to withstand tightening material supplies, volatile energy systems, and increasing complexity from digital operations. Sustainability has become a design focus in products and infrastructure, but the circular economy really shines here, where waste becomes resources. From the purity of recycled metals used in batteries and semiconductors to AI-enabled sorting that determines whether plastics can be reused at all, these industrial innovations and research are asking: can recycled materials be made as predictable and reliable as traditional ones?
Other innovations in The Industrial Science Report this week explore how advances in materials science, applied research infrastructure, utility-scale energy and water systems, and carbon-to-resource technologies are helping manufacturers to reduce environmental impact, close resource loops, and build more resilient operations.
NIST report highlights key strategies for building sustainable metals infrastructure
NIST’s work on sustainable metals focuses on lithium, cobalt, and advanced alloys used in batteries, semiconductors, medical devices, and other electronics-intensive industries, where trace impurities and inconsistent recycled content can undermine material performance. Without strong measurement standards and process controls, variability in recycled and alternative metals can introduce unexpected failure in the final product or even during the manufacturing process. Strengthening the U.S. metals infrastructure, NIST argues, is essential to improving long-term material performance and enabling greater use of recycled materials in manufacturing.
Recycled and alternative metals can introduce hidden reliability risks when proper measurement and processing controls are not in place. “Recycled metals can contain unintended impurities that, even in trace amounts, can impede the performance or processing of the metal,” says Kelsea Schumacher, circular economy program director of emerging areas at NIST. She notes that these impurities can reduce material ductility and formability.
“The presence of unintended impurities may also weaken the grain boundaries of a given material and cause unexpected failures,” says Schumacher.
Predicting alloy behavior and material properties long-term depends on measurement science, data, and modeling. Carelyn Campbell, thermodynamics and kinetics group leader at NIST, points to Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) approaches that are being used to improve material property predictions and optimize processing methods, including the development of scrap-tolerant alloys, new methods for recycling scrap metal, and improved recovery of critical rare earth metals.
“While the workshop report primarily focuses on developing a sustainable metal processing infrastructure, some of the strategies discussed can help mitigate the impact of supply chain volatility on material selection. Specifically, the development of new alloys with reduced dependence on critical minerals can help reduce the risk of material shortages,” Campbell says. Alloy substitutions could provide also alternative options for manufacturers, she adds.
“As the use of recycled content becomes more prevalent in various industries, including potentially electronics, maintenance, reliability, and quality engineers will likely need to adapt to new material properties and behaviors,” Campbell says. New skills or tools for engineers to inspect, test, and certify materials with higher recycled content could focus on “understanding the variability and consistency of recycled materials, developing new non-destructive testing techniques, and implementing more robust quality control processes to ensure the reliability of components made from recycled materials,” she adds.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report, “Material Challenges in Developing a Sustainable Metal Processing Infrastructure,” outlines the strategies for a more sustainable and resilient U.S. metals processing infrastructure, encompassing the entire materials lifecycle, from mining and alloy design to manufacturing, reuse, and recycling. The workshop-based report identifies critical challenges such as the lack of standards for recycled content and vulnerabilities in supply chains for critical materials like lithium and cobalt and advanced alloys. The report offers five strategic priorities, including advancing measurement science for sustainable manufacturing, creating technical foundations for improved standards, enhancing data and modeling tools, promoting workforce development, and fostering cross-sector collaboration.
Recycling facilities use AI to better sort plastics for re-use by manufacturers
Recycling isn’t just about saving the planet. For manufacturers, recycled plastics could be usable material streams, thanks to technology that can properly sort the different kinds of plastics. With high-quality sorting, recycled plastics re-enter manufacturing with properties close to the virgin materials and ready for use in new products. For engineers and technicians in the recycling biz, unplanned downtime in recycling lines could ripple back into manufacturer supply chains. These technologies combine mechanical conveyors with sophisticated electronics and software, underscoring the need for maintenance engineers with multidisciplinary skills.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) explains the scientific techniques used to identify and sort different types of plastics at recycling or materials recovery facilities. This is an essential step because plastics are composed of many polymers and additives that cannot be recycled together without degrading quality. Facilities commonly use near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy to measure light reflected from plastics, obtaining a spectral “fingerprint” that can quickly distinguish major polymer types, such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), used in water bottles, from high-density polyethylene (HDPE), used in milk jugs. This is all done while moving quickly on high-speed conveyor belts. When commercial spectrometers struggle to differentiate similar polymers like HDPE and low-density polyethylene (LDPE), used in plastic bags and films, NIST researchers are developing advanced methods using artificial intelligence, to improve accuracy and expand sorting capabilities. In laboratories, more detailed techniques such as size exclusion chromatography and mass spectrometry can analyze the lengths and additives of polymer chain, which make up plastics, helping scientists refine sorting algorithms and develop better recycling technologies. Effective sorting directly supports recycling systems that supply higher-purity recycled plastics back into manufacturing supply chains for products ranging from packaging to consumer goods.
RRC Polytech in Canada expands clean technology research for vehicles and heavy equipment with $3.3 M investment
By giving manufacturers access to real-world testing environments for electrification, hydrogen production, and microgrids, applied research facilities like RRC Polytech’s Vehicle Technology & Energy Centre reduce the risk of adopting unfamiliar technologies that can disrupt operations if not properly designed, operated, or maintained. For maintenance and reliability professionals, investment in local labs like this support a proving ground where reliability diagnostics and operational standards can be evaluated before new systems hit the factory floor.
Prairies Economic Development Canada (PrairiesCan) announced a $3.3 million investment to expand applied research capacity at RRC Polytech’s Vehicle Technology & Energy Centre (VTEC). The funding will establish an Innovation Garage to support local manufacturers and businesses, especially in the heavy equipment and vehicle (HEV) and transportation sectors, transition toward zero emissions. The project, undertaken in partnership with Vehicle Technology Centre (VTC), Government of Manitoba, and private partners, will provide flexible lab and project space with advanced tools including microgrid and hydrogen fuel cell labs to accelerate clean technology R&D. This expansion aims to bridge gaps in innovation adoption among small and medium enterprises, enabling them to scale technologies, strengthen workforce skills, and bring Canadian innovations to global markets. The project also supports the VTC’s Clean Technology and Advanced Manufacturing program and its collaborative approaches to commercialize sustainable processes and products. This initiative builds on VTEC’s previous work, including electric vehicle testing and diesel-to-electric conversion kits, to foster a competitive, low-carbon manufacturing ecosystem.
Engineering team in Seoul develops energy-harvesting water purification for simultaneous hydrogen production and desalination
Clean water and clean energy are deeply intertwined. In industrial systems, solving one problem often worsens the other. Water purification consumes large amounts of electricity, while many forms of electricity generation depend heavily on water. Researchers at Seoul National University are targeting this challenge by combining desalination and hydrogen production into a single, energy-harvesting system that produces purified water while recovering usable hydrogen energy. If scaled, the approach could turn traditionally energy-intensive utility operations into energy-recovering assets, reshaping how manufacturers and utilities think about resources and energy.
Seoul National University’s College of Engineering research team, led by Professor Sung Jae Kim from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has developed an energy-harvesting water purification system that simultaneously produces purified water and hydrogen. The technology removes impurities from saline water while reducing hydrogen ions at the electrode to generate hydrogen gas, integrating desalination and electrolysis into a single process. When electric current is applied across a cation exchange membrane, salt and other contaminants are removed on one of the membranes, producing purified water. On the other side, hydrogen ions receive electrons, producing hydrogen gas. Around 10% of the input electrical energy was recovered as hydrogen energy. Unlike traditional electrodialysis or reverse osmosis systems, the new platform operates without high-pressure pumps and uses a modular membrane structure, promising lightweight, adaptable deployment. The study, supported by the Korea Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) and the SNU Energy Initiative (SNUEI), was published in Communications Materials (Nature Portfolio).
Missouri S&T Ph.D. student developing process to boost algae growth for carbon capture and biofuels
Algae-based carbon capture could offer a way to convert emissions from industrial processes into usable resources, but scaling these systems has been limited by how efficiently carbon dioxide can be delivered to the organisms themselves. Research at Missouri University of Science and Technology addresses this bottleneck by improving carbon transfer within photobioreactors, which is a large tank used to grow algae, potentially making algae a more viable tool for emissions reduction across energy, manufacturing, and wastewater-intensive industries. If successful at scale, this approach transforms carbon management and sustainability standards from a compliance obligation into biofuel production opportunities.
A Missouri University of Science and Technology mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Alireza Fallahi has developed research using algae to capture industrial emissions. His research improves how carbon dioxide is delivered to algae in photobioreactors. This is a key challenge in scaling algae for industrial use. His work focuses on optimizing a rotating membrane system inside a photobioreactor to more efficiently transfer carbon dioxide from air into water, where algae can absorb it for growth. Using a combination of computer modeling and experimental validation, Fallahi demonstrated that controlled membrane motion can provide a steadier and more effective supply of carbon dioxide, increasing algae growth potential. The research targets applications in industrial emissions capture, biofuel production, and wastewater treatment, where large-scale, cost-effective algae cultivation is critical. Fallahi received a Young Researcher Award for engineering innovation for this work at the 2025 Algae Biomass Summit.
About the Author
Anna Townshend
managing editor
Anna Townshend has been a journalist and editor for almost 20 years. She joined Control Design and Plant Services as managing editor in June 2020. Previously, for more than 10 years, she was the editor of Marina Dock Age and International Dredging Review. In addition to writing and editing thousands of articles in her career, she has been an active speaker on industry panels and presentations, as well as host for the Tool Belt and Control Intelligence podcasts. Email her at [email protected].