An Ontology to Support Communication in Design-for-Circularity

Kurzfassung

The urgent need of CO2-reduction to limit climate change and the potential shortage on raw materials requires the recycling of end-of-life products to regain large portions of the materials invested. This recyclability is already determined by the design of product. Thus in the project Methods and Technologies for an intelligent Circularity of Materials (MaTiC-M), we developed a Design-for-Circularity methodology that accounts for recyclability during the design phase of products. To facilitate the necessary knowledge exchange between product designers, recyclers, and other involved stakeholders, we created the Design-for-Circularity Ontology (D4CO). It forms the basis for knowledge graphs that serve as an essential communication tool in the Design-for-Circularity methodology. In this paper, we introduce the Design-for-Circularity Ontology (D4CO) for the improvement of product designs.