4 September 2026
Potential in recycling critical raw materials
Metal cutting tools contain tungsten and cobalt. There is significant potential for reconditioning and recycling these tools, prolonging their lifetime and thereby reducing waste of raw materials, energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, economic costs, mining and dependency on the US and China. The limiting factor is not a lack of technological solutions but cooperation and coordination between small and medium-sized (SMEs) companies in the manufacturing industry, tool makers and refurbishment industry. A new thesis in Product innovation shows how these actors could cooperate more effectively.
Tungsten and cobalt are becoming increasingly important to industry. Cutting tools account for more than half of the global use tungsten use. Although the use of cobalt in cutting tools is considerably lower, both tungsten and cobalt are considered critical raw materials needed in green and digital technologies.
Most of the world’s supply of critical raw materials come from mines in China. The mineral supply within EU is limited. Thus, as a measure to reduce dependence on Chinese and, to some extent, US minerals and to increase environmental and social sustainability, The EU Critical Raw Materials Act states that the EU should focus on reducing the need for newly mined minerals by recycling metals already in the system.
In the EU, 99 percent of all cutting–tool users are SMEs.
“These SMEs do not have huge budget for the green transition, and they are sensitive to price fluctuations. Recycling and reconditioning could reduce their costs significantly, but they cannot afford the technology required. Thus, the challenge is to find a link between productivity and sustainability”, says the author of the thesis, Mohamed Elnourani Elhag Abdelmageed.
Cooperation could be developed
In his thesis he shows that the companies in the sector do cooperate. However, to develop cooperation they need to work on three main issues: clear roles and responsibilities, comparable information and functioning feedback mechanisms.
Previous studies show that metal cutting tools in the industry are only used for 50–70 percent of their lifespan, partly because buying a new tool is cheaper than investing in machines to refurbish an old one. Refurbishment services do exist. These are often staffed by former operators from metal–cutting SMEs who maintain informal communication with their former colleagues.
“In my interviews, people at the refurbishment services explained that they can see when operators are using the tools the wrong way or when the machine set-up is wrong. However, they have no systematic, formal channels to communicate this to the SMEs”
Sign a contract covering refurbishment
To address this problem, Mohamed Elnourani Elhag Abdelmageed, suggest a new business model in which refurbishment services and SMEs sign a contract covering refurbishment, consultancy and collection of old tools with a guarantee from the refurbishment service that the tool will work for a certain period. However, for this to work, refurbishment services and manufacturing SMEs need to share data that has traditionally been treated as commercially sensitive information.
Most SMEs cannot afford advanced AI solutions processing vast amount of data. The thesis shows that it is often enough to collect a smaller amount of reliable data to achieve results that can substantially reduce costs for both the economy and the environment.
Help finding cooperation
The thesis also contains a Circular Collaboration Maturity Ladder which is a conceptual tool to help actors within the metal cutting tool–ecosystem identify their stage of development and determine how they can improve their cooperation and coordination to achieve better results. Another tool presented in the thesis is the Circular Collaboration for Ecosystem Opportunities Mapping Canvas. This helps the companies identify what they are lacking, find suitable collaborators and determine how to organise the collaboration.
“Circularity is not only about technology. We have already have the technology. We need organisations that can use technology to the best of their interests”, says Mohamed Elnourani Elhag Abdelmageed.
The thesis is based on a case study of an industrial ecosystem in southern Sweden, comprising three SMEs and their contacts with the Swedish company Sandvik, one of the largest tool manufacturers in the world as well as companies in the refurbishment and recycling business. It contains two interview studies, one with 38 interviewees and and the other with 13, as well as site visits, workshops, surveys and literature studies.
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