Re-use and remanufacturing technologies and equipment for sustainable product lifecycle management

Specific challenge:In order to increase the competitiveness of EU industry and reduce the environmental footprint, manufacturing industries should develop innovative technologies and approaches to manufacture added-value products with fewer resources and to ensure a sustainable product life cycle based on reuse and re-manufacturing methods and technologies.

Innovative product recovery approaches would need to be developed in order to extract useful components from obsolete or malfunctioning modules, to re-use useful functions and/or materials for new products or to extend their lifespan. This will help save time, money, energy, and resources.

Modern high-tech products adopted in the electronics, medical, energy and transport industries are made of advanced materials that are at present poorly recovered and reused. Such materials with low substitutability and low recycling rates include advanced materials such as long and short fibre composites, nano-materials and bio-materials as well a