Single-Course Engelsk 5 ECTS

Resource Engineering

Overall Course Objectives

Natural resources represent materials and entities that are obtained from the natural environment and provides a usefulness for society, e.g. minerals, metals, biomass, and nutrients. Consumption and management of these resources in society are tremendously important for the environmental impacts from society and the possibilities for future technological development. The course provides the necessary background to address resources from an engineering perspective and presents key aspects related to consumption, quality, management and recovery of resources in a circular economy. With focus on the environment, the course further provides an introduction to important resource characteristics and introduces a range of engineering tools for evaluation of resources management in society, urban contexts and industrial processes.

See course description in Danish

Explain and be able to apply key definitions and terminology in relation to resources
Identify important environmental impacts in relation to the main resource types
Describe key types of resource indicators for evaluation of resource consumption
Describe the concept and methodology of resource criticality and apply this understanding to engage in qualified discussions about the dependence of societal and technological systems on specific resources
Evaluate resource management in simple systems based on material flow analysis
Evaluate how uncertainty, parameter choices, and scenario design influence the outcomes of resource assessment models.
Explain the main challenges related to resource recovery and use of recovered resources
Describe the factors that determine material quality and substitution potential in circular systems, including the role of physical and chemical impurities, and explain how these aspects influence resource use and recycling outcomes.
Apply the above concepts and methods for solving smaller assignments in relation to resource cycles
Set-up a simple material flow analysis and calculate resource indicators utilizing python in Jupyter notebooks

Today, most environmental impacts in society are associated with resource production, consumption and management of resources after the use-phase. The course provides students with an essential understanding of the role of resources in society, the most important environmental aspects related to resources, and how resources can be addressed from an engineering perspective. With focus on environmental aspects, the course addresses all key phases in the “life cycle” of resources, e.g. production, resource characteristics, consumption patterns, flows in society, and resource recovery and recycling.

The course provides an overview of resource definitions, criticality and functionality, typical resource flows in society as well as challenges and barrier related to resource recovery. The course moreover introduces selected engineering tools related to resource systems, e.g. resource criticality, material flows and life cycle based indicators. The students will learn how to work with uncertainty in engineering models and build scenarios to improve the evaluation of circularity and material flow outcomes.

02002/02003

Lectures, exercises, assignments, group work