Ceramics Archives - Transfire

Resource efficiency and energy efficiency in the Portuguese ceramic industry

TFI Network+ News The Portuguese ceramic industry constitutes 0.5% of Gross Domestic Product in Portugal, far higher than most other European nations, and thus it is essential this sector is decarbonised, cost-effectively to preserve jobs and national revenue. Moreover, the small size of the country and the co-location of ceramic factories dominantly in northern Portugal lowers the logistical barriers to act collectively to form networks and engage in collective strategies to push towards net zero carbon production. This article considers Portugal as an ideal case study for strategic and collective action to develop and facilitate carbon mitigation strategies. The article focuses mainly on current and future resource efficiency and energy efficiency strategies but additionally assesses the role of fuel switching (H2 vs electrification) and low energy densification technologies. Ian Reaney, Ben Walsh and Paula Vilarinho, Open Ceramics, Vol 15, 2023 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666539523000627

Poster competition celebrates advanced ceramics research

TransFIRe researcher, Dr Ahmed Khalil, has won first prize for his poster, “ThermoRecycliSt – Thermodynamic simulation-guided (waste) Recycling Strategy” at the Advanced Ceramics Show at the Birmingham NEC. The competition on advanced ceramic innovation and research was sponsored and supported by the Midlands Industrial Ceramics Group (MICG) and presented an opportunity for researchers and academics to network and interact with industry to celebrate research from across the sector. Each poster entry was marked for technical content, visual and verbal presentation skills and industrial application awareness by two judges from industries from the MICG and their international advisory group. The poster, that won in the category for Sensors, Artificial Intelligence and Modelling for the ceramics sector, describes a reliable waste or byproduct recycling guidance approach that evaluates the recycling potential and quality of waste materials and directs them to suitable applications. This strategy relies on thermodynamic calculations to predict phase [...]