Creaternity – sustainable material use in a connected and circular economy

In a feature in SVT, Luleå University of Technology's research on the possibilities of developing a small nuclear power reactor that is cooled with liquid lead instead of water is highlighted. Listen to what, among others, PhD student Paul Gruber says about the Sunrise project in the link below.

The wear-and-throw era is over, already when the product is produced. At Luleå University of Technology, we are now focusing in one of our future investments on how we can move towards a more circular economy, while at the same time utilising the advantages of digitisation, two important pieces of the puzzle to succeed in the green transition.

Bringing about a more circular use of materials is an important piece of the puzzle to succeed in the green transition. Now Roland Larsson, Professor of Machine elements at Luleå University of Technology, takes it one step further. – We must strive for an elliptical economy that is even more sustainable than the circular one, because the products' use phase will then be longer, he says.

Researchers at Luleå University of Technology and Chalmers University of Technology have developed a new method, Business Model LCA (BM-LCA), which helps companies calculate how climate footprints and other environmental impacts from operations change during a transition from a traditional to a circular business model. In the project, they have mainly looked at the market for high-quality outdoor clothing and for them this means renting their clothes instead of selling them.

To harvest the improvements and address the challenges the Swedish Energy Agency has just granted CEVT 6.2 MSEK to lead a joint project together with SKF and Luleå Technical University to explore how water-based lubricants can improve the already high efficiency of electric vehicles.