Cyber-Physical Systems formalization in de- and remanufacturing and application to size reduction stage

Circular economy aims to shift from traditional linear approach of "take, make, dispose" to a closed loop scenario with the final goals of waste reduction and improvement of environmental friendly processes, creating new adaptable and resilient systems. Recycling processes, fundamental in circular economy, are facing issues related to the variability both in input and in output, showing mechanical treatments as the most promising in terms of environmental impacts and costs. First step in every recycling line is shredding. The objective is to obtain liberated particles (composed only by target materials) at a desired dimensional distribution. Cyber-Physical Systems are the most promising technology in recycling due to their capability to enable working always with optimized parameters, with a continuous exchange of information and actuations between hardware and software parts. The scope of this work is to present an architecture to optimize comminution processes, divided in two different steps, also based on Cyber-Physical Systems. First one aims to achieve the target optimal distribution, while the second one to minimize operational costs.