2002 Volume 43 Issue 3 Pages 397-405
Based on the review of ten years progress of ecomaterials’ research and development, a barrier free processing is proposed as a next step of ecomaterials. In the first place, the development of ecomaterial is reviewed. The concept of ecomaterial has been widely spread in the design of materials as life-cycle thinking and has been realized in the various area as a form of consumer material, commodity material and energy-transmission material with the keyword of “hazardous substance free”, “green environmental profile”, “higher recyclability” and “higher materials efficiency”. The importance of the connection of the ecomaterial with DfE (design for the environment) is emphasized as the next step. The existence of the barrier in the material processing technology between ecomaterial-selection and DfE is pointed out. The barrier on the input-flow of the process makes it difficult to use of environmental friendly raw materials. The barrier on the output-flow of the process prevents it from the flexible formability to give the shape to realize DfE. In order to solve those problems, a new research project, named as “Study on the Barrier-Free Processing of Materials for Life-Cycle Design for Environment”, has been launched.
