Innovation designs of industry 4.0 based solid waste management: Machinery and digital circular economy

Chor Gene Cheah; Wen Yi Chia; Shuet Fen Lai; Kit Wayne Chew; Shir Reen Chia; Pau Loke Show

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2022.113619

Innovation designs of industry 4.0 based solid waste management: Machinery and digital circular economy

Environ Res. 2022 Oct:213:113619. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.113619. Epub 2022 Jun 11.

Authors

Chor Gene Cheah¹, Wen Yi Chia², Shuet Fen Lai³, Kit Wayne Chew⁴, Shir Reen Chia⁵, Pau Loke Show²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing (M3) Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Jalan Broga, 43500, Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
² Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Jalan Broga, 43500, Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
³ School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University Malaysia, Jalan Sunsuria, Bandar Sunsuria, 43900, Sepang, Selangor, Malaysia.
⁴ School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University Malaysia, Jalan Sunsuria, Bandar Sunsuria, 43900, Sepang, Selangor, Malaysia; College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, Fujian, China. Electronic address: kitwayne.chew@xmu.edu.my.
⁵ Institute of Sustainable Energy, Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN), Jalan IKRAM-UNITEN, 43000, Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia.

PMID: 35700763
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.113619

Abstract

The Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) holds the opportunity to improve the efficiency of managing solid waste through digital and machinery applications, effectively eliminating, recovering, and repurposing waste. This research aims to discover and review the potential of current technologies encompassing innovative Industry 4.0 designs for solid waste management. Machinery and processes emphasizing on circular economy were summarized and evaluated. The application of IR 4.0 technologies shows promising opportunities in improving the management and efficiency in view of solid waste. Machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and image recognition can be used to automate the segregation of waste, reducing the risk of exposing labour workers to harmful waste. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and wireless communications enable the traceability in materials to better understand the opportunities in circular economy. Additionally, the interconnectivity of systems and automatic transfer of data enable the creation of more complex system that houses a larger solution space that was previously not possible such as centralised cloud computing to reduce the cost by eliminating the need for individual computing systems. Through this comprehensive review-based work, innovative Industry 4.0 components of machinery and processes involving waste management which focuses on circular economy are identified with the critical ones evaluated briefly. It was found that the current research and work done is based on applying Industry 4.0 technologies on individual waste management systems, which lacks the coherency needed to capitalise on technologies such as cloud computing, interconnectivity, big data, etc on a larger scale. Therefore, a real world comprehensive end-to-end integration aimed to optimize every process within the solid waste management chain should be explored.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence (AI); Industrial revolution 4.0; Internet of things (IoT); Machine learning (ML); Solid waste management.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Artificial Intelligence
Humans
Industry
Machine Learning
Solid Waste* / analysis
Waste Management*

Substances

Solid Waste