Where and when

SEMINARI DICCA 2023

Prof. Cinzia Cristiani

Politecnico di Milano

“Please, don't call them wastes: examples of bounty from bin”

Summary 
According to the European Environmental Agency, the per-capita consumption of energy and materials is respectively three times and two times greater than that consumed in 1900. Moreover, there are now over 7.2 billion humans sustained by these resources, compared with 1.6 billion back in 1900. As a matter of fact, we are now consuming more resources than the Earth can regenerate. Circular economy can be a solutions for achieving economic development within increasing environmental constraints. A radical shift is required from linear to circular thinking. End-of-life products must be considered as a resource for another cycle, while losses and stocks of unused materials must be minimized and valorised along the value chain. Such an approach finds its natural implemetation in the so called “Urban Mining”, and awareness of the benefits of closing material loops must be raised in society. To get such challenging targets, new technologies and new methodology are required. After a short introduction, examples of “Urban Mining” studied by the Materials for Energy and Environment (MAT4En2) group at PoliMi “G. Natta” Department are presented.

Short Bio 
In 1984, Cinzia Cristiani obtained a degree in Chemistry from the University of Pavia. In 1990 she obtained a PhD in Industrial Chemistry. Since 2002 he has been associate professor at the Politecnico di Milano, School of Industrial and Information Engineering. He teaches the courses of "Functional Ceramic Materials Production" for the master’s degree in and "Materials Engineering and Nanotechnology", and the course of "Industrial Microbiology" for the master’s degree in "Chemical Engineering" and "Food Engineering". His past and present research activity has generally concerned the preparation, characterization and testing of materials for energy production and environmental protection. Currently, within the circular economy, it deals with: 1) organic-inorganic hybrid materials for environmental applications, 2) materials for controlled drug release and animal feed, 3) materials for photodegradation. She is a co-author of 138 scientific papers (h index 37, citation numbers 4493) published in international journals and 4 book chapters.

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