【Special Issues: Recycling and Resourse Recovery of Inorganic Solid Wastes】
Resource Recovery of Valuable and Hazardous Metals from Ceramic Scraps
Ryo Sasai* and Hideaki Itoh*
* Division of Environmental Research, EcoTopia Science Institute, Nagoya University
† Correspondence should be addressed to Ryo Sasai:
（Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8603 Japan）

Abstract
Due to its dependence on importing most valuable metal resources from foreign countries, the depletion of metal resources is a serious problem in Japan. The ceramic industry is well known to expend much of various metal resources. Although engineering developments for cutting back on consumption and waste of metal resources and fossil fuel have been energetically conducted, the recycling of ceramics scraps has not been fully introduced in the manufacturing process. The reason for this is that pulverization, decomposition, and chemical modification cost a great amount, and use huge amounts of energy to attain the high mechanical and chemical stability of ceramic materials. We have developed technological innovations for decreasing energy consumption and costs to recover resources from ceramic scrap materials. This paper reviews the recycling process for ceramic scraps, and introduces our work on the recycling of ceramic powder and valuable/hazardous metals from ceramic wastes.

Key words: ceramic scrap material, powder recycling, resource recovery, hydrothermal treatment, mcchanochemical method