IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i4p2284-d751676.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Explorative Multiple-Case Research on the Scrap-Based Steel Slag Value Chain: Opportunities for Circular Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Mohammadtaghi Falsafi

    (Institute of Intelligent Industrial Systems and Technologies for Advanced Manufacturing (CNR-STIIMA), National Research Council of Italy, 20133 Milan, Italy
    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, 20156 Milan, Italy)

  • Rosanna Fornasiero

    (Institute of Electronics, Information Engineering and Telecommunications (CNR-IEIIT), National Research Council of Italy, 35131 Padova, Italy)

Abstract

This paper analyses the scrap-based steel slag from the electric arc furnace and secondary metallurgy and proposes a framework for valorising its value chain. Toward this aim, the role of slag features, technological advancements for the treatment of slag, applications, legislation, and their value chain in the circular economy and industrial symbiosis opportunities are discussed within the proposed framework. By interviewing a group of Italian steelmakers, accounting for around 30% of Italian scrap-based steel volume, we analyse various value chain key factors, namely, technology, legislation, production volume, and economic aspects. Consequently, we assess the as-is situation of the sector and elaborate on the challenges and expectations for the future in terms of collaboration frameworks. The results show how vertical (by internal treatment) and horizontal integrations (by collaborating with other potential industries) support decisions on material flow and facilitate circularity in sharing this kind of material. The most influential enabler in a vertical integration is the economic aspect, while in the horizontal integration the enablers are the market and technology. We also address the importance of raw-material self-sufficiency through analysing closed-loop supply chains and collaborative supply-chain networks.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohammadtaghi Falsafi & Rosanna Fornasiero, 2022. "Explorative Multiple-Case Research on the Scrap-Based Steel Slag Value Chain: Opportunities for Circular Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-18, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:4:p:2284-:d:751676
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/4/2284/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/4/2284/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Izabela Nielsen & Sani Majumder & Eryk Szwarc & Subrata Saha, 2020. "Impact of Strategic Cooperation under Competition on Green Product Manufacturing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-28, December.
    2. Piotr F. Borowski, 2021. "Digitization, Digital Twins, Blockchain, and Industry 4.0 as Elements of Management Process in Enterprises in the Energy Sector," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-20, March.
    3. Shuiye Niu & Honglong Zhuo & Kelei Xue, 2019. "DfRem-Driven Closed-Loop Supply Chain Decision-Making: A Systematic Framework for Modeling Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-19, June.
    4. Pietro A. Renzulli & Bruno Notarnicola & Giuseppe Tassielli & Gabriella Arcese & Rosa Di Capua, 2016. "Life Cycle Assessment of Steel Produced in an Italian Integrated Steel Mill," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-15, July.
    5. Manuel E. Morales & Arnaud Diemer, 2019. "Industrial Symbiosis Dynamics, a Strategy to Accomplish Complex Analysis: The Dunkirk Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-18, April.
    6. Wen, Zongguo & Xu, Jinjing & Lee, Jason C.K. & Ren, Cuiping, 2017. "Symbiotic technology-based potential for energy saving: A case study in China's iron and steel industrial parks," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 1303-1311.
    7. Zhang, Hui & Dong, Liang & Li, Huiquan & Fujita, Tsuyoshi & Ohnishi, Satoshi & Tang, Qing, 2013. "Analysis of low-carbon industrial symbiosis technology for carbon mitigation in a Chinese iron/steel industrial park: A case study with carbon flow analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1400-1411.
    8. Dong, Liang & Gu, Fumei & Fujita, Tsuyoshi & Hayashi, Yoshitsugu & Gao, Jie, 2014. "Uncovering opportunity of low-carbon city promotion with industrial system innovation: Case study on industrial symbiosis projects in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 388-397.
    9. Manuel Morales & Arnaud Diemer, 2019. "Industrial Symbiosis Dynamics, a Strategy to Accomplish Complex Analysis: The Dunkirk Case Study," Post-Print hal-02127581, HAL.
    10. Manuel Morales & Arnaud Diemer, 2019. "Industrial Symbiosis Dynamics, a Strategy to Accomplish Complex Analysis: The Dunkirk Case Study [Dynamique de la symbiose industrielle, une stratégie pour réaliser une analyse complexe: l'étude de," Post-Print hal-02539477, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lovisa Harfeldt-Berg & Sarah Broberg & Karin Ericsson, 2022. "The Importance of Individual Actor Characteristics and Contextual Aspects for Promoting Industrial Symbiosis Networks," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-21, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Angela Neves & Radu Godina & Susana G. Azevedo & João C. O. Matias, 2019. "Current Status, Emerging Challenges, and Future Prospects of Industrial Symbiosis in Portugal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-23, October.
    2. Luca Fraccascia & Vahid Yazdanpanah & Guido Capelleveen & Devrim Murat Yazan, 2021. "Energy-based industrial symbiosis: a literature review for circular energy transition," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 4791-4825, April.
    3. Fabiana Liar Agudo & Barbara Stolte Bezerra & José Alcides Gobbo & Luis Alberto Bertolucci Paes, 2022. "Unfolding research themes for industrial symbiosis and underlying theories," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 1682-1702, December.
    4. Lovisa Harfeldt-Berg & Sarah Broberg & Karin Ericsson, 2022. "The Importance of Individual Actor Characteristics and Contextual Aspects for Promoting Industrial Symbiosis Networks," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-21, April.
    5. Daniel Jato-Espino & Carmen Ruiz-Puente, 2020. "Fostering Circular Economy Through the Analysis of Existing Open Access Industrial Symbiosis Databases," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-24, January.
    6. Luigi Fusco Girard & Francesca Nocca, 2019. "Moving Towards the Circular Economy/City Model: Which Tools for Operationalizing This Model?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-48, November.
    7. Qiuchen Wang & Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge & Sebastiaan Meijer, 2019. "Adopting an Actor Analysis Framework to a Complex Technology Innovation Project: A Case Study of an Electric Road System," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-35, December.
    8. Nathaniel John Maynard & Vaishnav Raj Kanagaraj Subramanian & Chien-Yu Hua & Shih-Fang Lo, 2020. "Industrial Symbiosis in Taiwan: Case Study on Linhai Industrial Park," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-11, June.
    9. Sun, Lu & Li, Hong & Dong, Liang & Fang, Kai & Ren, Jingzheng & Geng, Yong & Fujii, Minoru & Zhang, Wei & Zhang, Ning & Liu, Zhe, 2017. "Eco-benefits assessment on urban industrial symbiosis based on material flows analysis and emergy evaluation approach: A case of Liuzhou city, China," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 78-88.
    10. Asghari, M. & Afshari, H. & Jaber, M.Y. & Searcy, C., 2023. "Credibility-based cascading approach to achieve net-zero emissions in energy symbiosis networks using an Organic Rankine Cycle," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).
    11. Dong, Liang & Liang, Hanwei & Zhang, Liguo & Liu, Zhaowen & Gao, Zhiqiu & Hu, Mingming, 2017. "Highlighting regional eco-industrial development: Life cycle benefits of an urban industrial symbiosis and implications in China," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 361(C), pages 164-176.
    12. Liu, Zhe & Adams, Michelle & Cote, Raymond P. & Geng, Yong & Chen, Qinghua & Liu, Weili & Sun, Lu & Yu, Xiaoman, 2017. "Comprehensive development of industrial symbiosis for the response of greenhouse gases emission mitigation: Challenges and opportunities in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 88-95.
    13. Efrain Boom-Cárcamo & Rita Peñabaena-Niebles, 2022. "Analysis of the Development of Industrial Symbiosis in Emerging and Frontier Market Countries: Barriers and Drivers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-32, April.
    14. Yuli Bian & Liang Dong & Zhaowen Liu & Lezhu Zhang, 2020. "A Sectoral Eco-Efficiency Analysis on Urban-Industrial Symbiosis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-19, May.
    15. Wang, Yihan & Wen, Zongguo & Yao, Jianguo & Doh Dinga, Christian, 2020. "Multi-objective optimization of synergic energy conservation and CO2 emission reduction in China's iron and steel industry under uncertainty," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    16. Wang, Chen & Engels, Anita & Wang, Zhaohua, 2018. "Overview of research on China's transition to low-carbon development: The role of cities, technologies, industries and the energy system," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 1350-1364.
    17. Agnieszka Kuś & Dorota Grego-Planer, 2021. "A Model of Innovation Activity in Small Enterprises in the Context of Selected Financial Factors: The Example of the Renewable Energy Sector," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-17, May.
    18. Long Xue & Qianyu Zhang & Xuemang Zhang & Chengyu Li, 2022. "Can Digital Transformation Promote Green Technology Innovation?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-20, June.
    19. Garfield Wayne Hunter & Gideon Sagoe & Daniele Vettorato & Ding Jiayu, 2019. "Sustainability of Low Carbon City Initiatives in China: A Comprehensive Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-37, August.
    20. Jun Liu & Yu Qian & Huihong Chang & Jeffrey Yi-Lin Forrest, 2022. "The Impact of Technology Innovation on Enterprise Capacity Utilization—Evidence from China’s Yangtze River Economic Belt," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-17, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:4:p:2284-:d:751676. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.