Life cycle assessment of refractory waste management in a Spanish steel works.

A life cycle assessment (LCA) is conducted on the current refractory waste management practices in a steel works in Spain producing around 6,000 tonnes of refractory waste in 2018. Management practices included direct reuse of spent magnesia-carbon (MgO-C) bricks, recycling of MgO-C bricks and high-alumina refractories by an external contractor and landfilling of monolithics and isostatic refractories, for which there were yet no established valorization routes. This current situation was compared to a hypothetical scenario where all refractories were disposed in landfill. The LCA included waste management activities (collection, transport, treatment) as well as production of substituted primary materials (dead-burned magnesia, calcined bauxite and new MgO-C bricks) produced in China and Germany. Results are discussed for four indicators: greenhouse-gas emissions, Non-renewable energy demand, land use and water use. Overall, per tonne of produced waste, the current management leads to a reduction or saving of 0.54 tonnes CO2-eq, 3 GJ primary energy from non-renewable sources, the occupation of 10 m2 of land during one year and the abstraction of 5 m3 freshwater. The results also show that reuse, in the particular case of spent MgO-C bricks, leads to higher benefits than recycling by At least a factor four. The robustness of these results is confirmed through the application of a Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis, as well as a sensitivity analysis focusing on a shift from coal to natural gas in the Chinese refractory industry.

A Guide for the Food Industry to Meet the Future Skills Requirements Emerging with Industry 4.0.

The food industry has recently faced rapid and constant changes due to the current industrial revolution, Industry 4.0, which has also profoundly altered the dynamics of the industry overall. Due to the emerging digitalisation, manufacturing models are changing through the use of smart technologies, such as robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, etc. They are experiencing a new phase of automation that enables innovative and more efficient processes, products and services. The introduction of these novel business models demands new professional skills requirements in the workforce of the food industry. In this work, we introduce an industry-driven proactive strategy to achieve a successful digital transformation in the food sector. For that purpose, we focus on defining the current and near-future key skills and competencies demanded by each of the professional profiles related to the food industry. To achieve this, we generated an automated database of current and future professions and competencies and skills. This database can be used as a fundamental roadmap guiding the sector through future changes caused by Industry 4.0. The interest shown by the local sectorial cluster and related entities reinforce the idea. This research will be a key tool for both academics and policy-makers to provide well-developed and better-oriented continuous training programs in order to reduce the skill mismatch between the workforce and the jobs.