Feasibility study for an Estonian Materials Technology Programme

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Feasibility study for an Estonian Materials Technology Programme
2. Materials technology in Estonia
Understanding
materials and
their properties
• Materials science
• Characterisation
• Modelling
Control and tailoring
of properties
• Functionalities:
• durability, stability,
• conductance etc.
Figure 4. Materials technology and development
Lifecycle Management
Processing and
manufacturing
• Processability
• Desingnability
• Production
Materials Technology and development can be divided into four sectors according to Figure 4. Life-cycle management
of both the material itself and the products being developed is an important factor that has to be
taken into account throughout the development process.
The end-of-life products and materials recycling sector is very well developed in Estonia. Estonia has well functioning
collection systems for different type of wastes, which are organized by producers’ responsibility organizations.
Interesting organizations in this area include:
Eesti Pandipakend OÜ: The collected packaging materials: aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles are
sold as secondary raw material back to recycling industry.
Pakendiringlus MTÜ (non-profit): Mixed packaging waste collection. The collected material is sold as a
secondary raw material back to recycling industry
Eesti Taaskasutusorganisatsioon MTÜ (non-profit) is representing the „green dot“ packaging collection
system in Estonia and mainly collects mixed packaging waste.
MTÜ Eesti Rehviliit is responsible for tires collection.
Kuusakoski OY (Finnish): End-of-life vehicles collection and electronics recycling.
AS Ecometal retreatment of used car batteries with lead, 20 000 tons annually. Rotating furnace for 20
tons of waste is for lead melting and gives a product – lead.
Plastitehase AS (bankrupt): The company collected metallic and plastic scrap and sold them to metals
and plastics industry, respectively.
From the university side, the Department of Materials Engineering at the Tallinn University of Technology has
several cooperation projects with recycling industry such as:
Recycling of composite plastics
Acrylic plastics with fiberglass scrap from bathtub and shower cabin producers (AS Balteco, OÜ
Aquator, OÜ Wellspa). These companies have done cooperation projects on recycling of composite
plastics.
Desintegrator technology that enables to produce powders from cermets and hardmetals, whish are the
wastes from tooling industry, with partners such as Sumar AS.
PCB (printed circuit board) recycling in cooperation with Weerec AS.
In general materials technology as can be seen from Figure 5, University of Tartu and Tallinn University of
Technology have received most of the project funding directed to materials science and technology research
in Estonia 3 and thus, most of the activities of the study have been focused on these two institutes. The project
funding, though, represents only a small portion of all funding to the universities but based on extensive desk
research, interviews and inspection of scientific publications, the picture remains the same.
3 Natural sciences and engineering project data from Archimedes foundation, filtered by Spinverse
Applying materials
technology
• Development
• of
selected
• applications and
• products