ICT Challenges in Advancing Circular Economy: Insights from Mechanical Plastics Recycling

Wednesday Mar 19, 2025, 12:30 PM → 1:30 PM Europe/Amsterdam

Marco P. Seabra dos Reis (Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Coimbra)

ICT Challenges in Advancing Circular Economy: Insights from Mechanical Plastics Recycling

Speaker: Ramin Nikzad-Langerodi (Software Competence Center Hagenberg (SCCH GmbH))

Chair: Marco P. Seabra dos Reis (University of Coimbra, Portugal)

Date: 19th March 2025, at 12:30-13:30 CET

The transition from linear, resource-intensive industries to a circular economy introduces significant challenges for information and communication technologies (ICT). Achieving circularity in material usage, such as through mechanical plastics recycling, necessitates a shift to agile and interconnected value chains capable of addressing fluctuations in material streams and evolving market requirements. This flexibility depends on the development and implementation of three key areas:

1. Innovative data management and process-oriented data processing approaches to optimize resource utilization and operational efficiency.
2. Secure methods for data exchange and integration across organizational boundaries, ensuring the protection of proprietary information while enabling transparency and collaboration.
3. Collaborative process modeling and real-time monitoring to facilitate simulation and control of entire value chains, supporting dynamic decision-making and system optimization.

This keynote systematically explores these challenges and corresponding solution strategies, using mechanical plastics recycling as a representative case study. The insights aim to highlight the critical role of ICT systems in enabling sustainable and efficient circular economies.

Bio:

Ramin Nikzad-Langerodi is a researcher team leader at the Software Competence Center Hagenberg (SCCH GmbH) located in Upper Austria. Before joining SCCH, he worked as a chemometrician at the Research Center for Non-Destructive Testing (RECENDT GmbH) and as a machine learning researcher at the Department of Knowledge-Based Mathematical Systems at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz. Ramin Nikzad-Langerodi holds a master’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Zurich and a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Vienna.

 

12:30 PM → 1:30 PM ICT Challenges in Advancing Circular Economy: Insights from Mechanical Plastics Recycling

Speaker: Ramin Nikzad-Langerodi