ETI

Special Issue on Fundamentals and applications for green manufacturing

The interest and enthusiasm around the topic of green manufacturing has encouraged a lot of research and investigation into this complex subject. As a first step towards sustainable manufacturing, green manufacturing is considered as “a methodology for manufacturing that minimizes waste and pollution”. However, there are still obstacles and barriers to green manufacturing for the industrial practice, from policy level, supply chain level and technology level to the environmentally friendly awareness of manufacturers and consumers. It is important to develop quantitative predictive models for green product design and manufacture in order to understand the integral role of these elements of sustainability in product manufacture. The goal of circular economy in industry emerged with innovative engineered materials, manufacturing processes, and systems aiming to provide multiple life-cycle products. The need for ecological efficiency and the environmental concerns are often associated with production of minimum waste amounts, minimum toxic emissions into the air, soil, and water, and minimum energy consumption at all life cycle stages

Green manufacturing is a significant element of sustainable development, including three functional elements: products, processes, and systems. Product design, selection of raw materials, manufacturing process, product delivery and reuse, remanufacturing or recycling options for products’ end of life have influences for the of environmental degradation level. Ongoing search for new and innovative ways can reduce the demand for energy consumption, resource utilization and pollutant emissions during the manufacturing process, which are considered as the environmental necessity for green manufacturing. Innovation in the material exploration have been considered as another critical method for the development of green manufacturing. Efforts are currently focused to: efficient consumption of resources and conserve energy, minimize the environmental effects of energy production, improve waste management system, and establish zero-waste mode in manufacturing.

The special issue of fundamental and application for green manufacturing encourages research in fields of product management, manufacturing, material science, environment science and other relevant subjects to share their state-of-the-art research on the development on green manufacturing in industry, including but not limited to:

• Close-loop economy;

• Green supply chain management under the background of big data;

• Green manufacturing for engineering machinery;

• Green technology for vehicle manufacturing;

• Low-carbon manufacturing;

• Remanufacturing technology;

• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for green products/technology;

• Green supply chain;

• Sustainable manufacturing for high-tech industry

• Sustainable Materials Research and Development