Shedding Light on the Anthropogenic Europium Cycle in the EU–28. Marking Product Turnover and Energy Progress in the Lighting Sector

Abstract

Phase-out strategies for incandescent bulbs in favor of advanced energy-efficiency lighting systems such as fluorescent lamps and solid-state technology have considerably reduced the energy use for lighting, but have also resulted in dependence on many critical materials like rare earth elements and shifted the attention to sustainable use and recovery of resources. In this work, a dynamic material flow model was developed to analyze the socio-economic metabolism of europium in the EU–28. The analysis shows that europium marked product turnover and progress in lighting efficiency, with this element being employed both in traditional and novel lighting technology to provide luminescence. The results also demonstrate that the current anthropogenic reserve could constitute an attractive source of secondary europium with substantial potentials for environmental benefits. However, nonexistent recycling and market forces hinder strategies for material circularity. In particular, the transition from fluorescent lamps to solid-state technology is quickly decreasing the demand for europium. This trend adds further constraints to the creation of a sustainable recycling industry for europium, with primary sources that might remain the preferable route to supply phosphors to future lighting systems.

Economic feasibility of recycling rare earth oxides from end-of-life lighting technologies

“…As FLs are replaced by LEDs in the future, it is expected that the overall demand for Eu 2 O 3 will decrease, and so will its criticality and market price. A potential oversupply of europium is also likely to occur as its demand starts to decline after the peak year, therefore recycling will not be a favorable option for Eu 2 O 3 (Ciacci et al 2018;Rollat et al 2016). However, yttrium and terbium have relatively diverse applications.…”

“…Within these metals, the REEs are considered as critical materials worldwide, and the US Department of Energy ranked several rare earth elements (Yttrium, Europium, Terbium, Neodymium, and Dysprosium) as critical metals, indicating their high importance to clean energy and the high supply risk (Bauer et al 2011). In the efficient lighting technologies, rare earth oxides (REOs) are used to produce phosphors of FLs and LEDs (Ciacci et al 2018). The type and amount of REOs required by FLs and LEDs vary among different technologies.…”

“…Machacek et al (2015) estimated the global demand and potential secondary supply of yttrium, europium and terbium in the lighting sector, focusing on the period from 2015 to 2020. Ciacci et al (2018) analyzed the europium cycle and the potential for recycling focusing on 28 EU countries. Global scale prospective assessment on the recyclability of REOs from lighting technologies, however, has been lacking in the literature.…”

“…Economic feasibility plays a key role in understanding market-based recycling practice (Cucchiella et al 2016). Industrial REOs recycling from EoL lighting technologies, for example, is scarcely practiced today as REOs recycling can hardly make any profit since the REO price collapse after 2013 (Ciacci et al 2018); Solvay-Rhodia opened two industrial-scale facilities in France in 2011, which respectively focused on the upstream and downstream processes of REOs recovery from EoL fluorescent light bulbs (Machacek et al 2015;Solvay 2014), but these two plants had to shut down in 2016 following the demand drop of rare earth in the lighting sector and the global REE price collapse (SudOuest.fr 2016). According to Innocenzi et al (2016Innocenzi et al ( , 2017, recycling REOs from EoL FLs is not economically feasible under the 2016 REO market prices.…”

Rational Behavior of an Enterprise in the Energy Market in a Circular Economy

“…Philips retains the right of ownership of the energy equipment it supplies; customers do not pay for installation and maintenance as this constitutes the service part of the contract On the one hand, the problem of adaptation of energy arrangements at manufacturing companies to the needs of a circular economy appears quite solvable in terms of technical solutions, many of which were already scientifically investigated and trialed in practice. The list of such solutions includes, first and foremost, measures to eliminate losses of energy carriers, energy recycling, an overall rational approach to energy consumption, and introduction of an energy management system [23][24][25]. Other areas, however, are less researched.…”