Rochester Institute of Technology to lead REMADE Institute for recycling aluminium

The Rochester Institute of Technology has launched a new initiative under Reducing Embodied-Energy and Decreasing Emissions (REMADE) Institute for recycling, reuse, and remanufacturing of aluminium.

The REMADE Institute, worth US$150 million, is financed by the United States federal government, domestic industry, over two dozen major universities, and national labs.

According to Magdi Azer, REMADE Institute’s Chief Technology Officer, “Today, if you take some aluminium and you recycle it, what it ends up doing is going into a soda can. That’s called ‘downcycling’. We want to find ways to improve how we process that material, so that we can reuse it again and again and again in airplanes, not just in aluminium cans.”

Deborah Thurston, head of the Institute’s Design for Reuse/Disassembly node explained, “The original equipment manufacturer can do this process cost effectively and really make the most of the energy that was spent making the product in the first place, so that energy doesn’t get wasted.”

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The REMADE has five areas of emphasis which includes system analysis and integration, design for reuse and disassembly, manufacturing processes, remanufacturing/end-of-life reuse, and recycling and recovery.

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