About
593
Publications
131,169
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
9,819
Citations
Introduction
Paul H. Brunner is Professor Emeritus at TU Vienna. He was heading the Institute of Water Quality, Resources and Waste Management, TU Wien. Paul did research in Civil Engineering, Waste and Resource Management, and Environmental Engineering. He pioneered the fields of Material Flow Analysis, Urban Metabolism, and Final Sink.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
September 1990 - July 1991
October 1981 - June 1990
September 1978 - August 1979
Education
April 1978 - March 1979
May 1972 - June 1976
Field of study
- Environmental Engineering: Waste Management
October 1966 - April 1971
Publications
Publications (593)
A new method is presented to quantify the potential of a system to concentrate or dilute substances. The approach is based on a comprehensive material flow analysis and Shannon's statistical entropy function that is transformed by a three-step procedure. The result is a new function that can be applied to any defined system with known mass-flows an...
This study aimed to determine whether the waste management systems, that are presently applied in affluent countries are appropriate solutions for waste management in less developed regions. For this purpose, three cities (Vienna, Damascus and Dhaka) which differ greatly in their gross domestic product and waste management were compared. The criter...
This paper proves that waste-to-energy is a necessary process for every circular economy. Because not all materials used by humans can be recycled, the anthropogenic metabolism of high performance societies requires final sinks such as waste-to-energy. The paper derives this conclusion by investigating into the link between thermal processes and an...
The rationale for this article is that often, decision-makers in waste management (wm) tend to neglect goals and confuse them with means like circular economy or waste hierarchy. Because clear goals are crucial for developing effective wm strategies, the objectives of this mini review are (1) to clarify wm goals in a historical context by a literat...
This mini-review aims at proving that waste-to-energy (WtE) is an essential cornerstone for circular economy (CE). Based on literature, the history of thermal waste treatment over the last 150 years is investigated, from open burning to WtE with resource recovery and final sink function. The results show that in the past incineration solved the iss...
Circular economy aims to cycle materials at high value in observance of high protection levels towards human health and environment. Special attention is given to those materials that can be given a second life through recycling. Recycling is tasked to produce secondary materials of high quality. One quality parameter among others is the absence of...
Do you remember the times when we all bought our flight tickets at a travel agency where we got the necessary documents, checked in at the airline counter with a friendly employee handing out boarding passes, and hopped into the plane? Today, we spend hours searching for the best flight in the internet, preparing and printing the travel documents,...
The environmental impacts of deposited MSW are mainly associated with the emissionsof leachate and biogas. While biogas emissions will become negligible within decades,leachate emissions will stay on an environmental incompatible level for hundreds ofyears, calculated under simplified assumptions. The generation of leachate from MSWlandfills is det...
Modern products contain a wide range of substances. Some of them are hazardous, cause risks for human and environmental health, and impair the quality of future secondary resources produced by recycling. Ways must be explored to extract detrimental substances during recycling and direct them to safe final sinks. Final sinks can be end-of-pipe techn...
The discussion on urban metabolism has been long dominated by natural scientists focussing on natural forces shaping the energy and material flows in urban systems. However, in the anthropocene human forces such as industrialization and urbanization are mobilizing people, goods and information at an increasing pace and as such have a large impact o...
Material flow analysis (MFA) is a well-established tool for supporting decisions on nutrient management. This paper shows the importance of the system boundary chosen when an MFA system is established. To reach this goal, data of existing regional and global phosphorous studies was investigated in view of phosphorous-flows (P-flows) and stocks with...
This paper demonstrates the power of material flow analysis (MFA) for designing waste management (WM) systems and for supporting decisions with regards to given environmental and resource goals. Based on a comprehensive case study of a nationwide WM-system, advantages and drawbacks of a mass balance approach are discussed. Using the software STAN,...
Features:
- Continues to serve as the only book on material flow analysis (MFA)
- Updates information concerning MFA/SFA development
- Includes software STAN and links to STAN2WEB
- Contains new case studies about resource management and waste management
- Provides a fresh, data-based treatment of uncertainty
Summary:
Since the first issue of the h...
In Austria, federal waste management goals aim at (i) protection of humans, animals and plants, (ii) reduction of greenhouse gases and air pollution, (iii) conservation of resources, (iv) production of recycled materials that do not present a greater risk than comparable primary materials, and (v) remaining waste that can be stored without jeopardi...
In this second edition of a bestseller, authors Paul H. Brunner and Helmut Rechberger guide professional newcomers as well as experienced engineers and scientists towards mastering the art of material flow analysis (MFA) from the very beginning to an advanced state of material balances of complex systems. Handbook of Material Flow Analysis: For Env...
Im Rahmen dieses zweijährigen Projektes wurde untersucht, ob die österreichische Abfallwirtschaft (AWS) ihre Ziele gemäß Abfallwirtschaftsgesetz (AWG) erreicht, und ob allenfalls die dazu eingesetzten finanziellen Mittel wirkungsvoller eingesetzt werden könnten. Dazu wurde eine neue, auf Materialbilanzen, Lebenszyklus- und Szenarienanalysen basiere...
This article reviews, categorizes, and evaluates the objectives, means, and results of the application of material flow analysis (MFA) in waste management. It identifies those areas where MFA methodologies are most successful in supporting waste management decisions. The focus of this review is on the distinction between MFA on the level of goods a...
Final Sinks – Prerequisite for a Cycling Society
Paul H. Brunner, Vienna University of Technology
To sustain the so called “anthropogenic metabolism”, that is the use of materials and energy by society to support human activities, very large amounts of materials are extracted from the earth crust as well as synthesized by technical processes. After...
Reviewers: The ultimate resource for scientific publishing
“Did the stone age end because we ran out of stones?” this rhetorical question points out that however scarce physical resources may be, the real issue is not materials but immaterial resources such as knowledge, culture, technology, governance and the like. Without the technology for prod...
Today`s “anthropogenic metabolism” involves a huge material turnover. After utilization, materials either remain in the anthroposphere as recycling products, or they leave the anthroposphere as waste and emission flows. To accommodate these materials without jeopardizing human and environmental health, limited natural sinks are available; thus, man...
This paper calculates the impact of three measures in order to reduce the global warming potential (GWP) and cumulative energy demand (CED) of Vienna's subway line U2. Results show that the increase of the train occupancy rate has the highest reduction impact (-30%/-30%), followed by new rolling stock (-26%/-34%), and a change in energy mix (-8%/-4...
Besides recyclables, the use of materials inevitably yields non-recyclable materials such as emissions and wastes for disposal. These flows must be directed to sinks in a way that no adverse effects arise for humans and the environment. The objective of this paper is to present a new indicator for the assessment of substance flows to sinks on a reg...
In this paper, the utility of the Ecological Footprint method to assess the environmental impact of a public transport system is discussed, and a new method to supplement the Ecological Footprint to consider resource demand is shown. The method was used to determine the Ecological Footprint of the biggest provider of public transport in Vienna, nam...
The novelty of this paper is the demonstration of the effectiveness of combining material flow analysis (MFA) with substance flow analysis (SFA) for decision making in waste management. Both MFA and SFA are based on the mass balance principle. While MFA alone has been applied often for analysing material flows quantitatively and hence to determine...
Assessment methods are common tools to support decisions regarding waste management. The objective of this review article is to provide guidance for the selection of appropriate evaluation methods. For this purpose, frequently used assessment methods are reviewed, categorised, and summarised. In total, 151 studies have been considered in view of th...
Material management faces a dual challenge: on the one hand satisfying large and increasing demands for goods and on the other hand accommodating wastes and emissions in sinks. Hence, the characterization of material flows and stocks is relevant for both improving resource efficiency and environmental protection. This article focuses on the urban s...
Human activities inevitably result in wastes. The higher the material turnover, and the more complex and divers the materials produced, the more challenging it is for waste management to reach the goals of “protection of men and environment” and “resource conservation”. Waste incineration, introduced originally for volume reduction and hygienic rea...
Supporting Information S1: provides a large quantity of background material that complements the methods and findings included in the main research article, including a compilation of 15 exemplary studies for copper (Cu) on an urban scale, comprehensive descriptions of all flows and stocks for the study, documentation on the substance flow analysis...
Editorial questioning the waste hierarchy and the zero waste paradigm, and stressing that we need clean cycles and safe final sinks more than high recyling rates and contaminated recycling products.
see: http://wmr.sagepub.com/content/31/10_suppl/1.full.pdf
The present article examines flows and stocks of Stockholm Convention regulated pollutants, commercial penta- and octabrominated diphenyl ether (cPentaBDE, cOctaBDE), on a city level. The goals are to (1) identify sources, pathways, and sinks of these compounds in the city of Vienna, (2) determine the fractions that reach final sinks, and (3) devel...
In this study we introduce the concept of total material requirement (TMR) to quantify the quality of materials from end‐of‐life buildings. The TMRs for the recycling of materials (urban ore TMR [UO‐TMR]) from four types of Japanese buildings ( Japanese traditional wooden structure [ JTWS], wooden frame with walls structure [ WFS ], reinforced‐conc...
Anthropogenic material use ineluctable yields non-recyclable material flows such as certain waste fractions and emissions. Those flows have to find appropriate sinks in order to avoid harmful impacts on ecological and human health.
In this study we introduce the concept of total material requirement (TMR) to quantify the quality of materials from end-of-life buildings. The TMRs for the recycling of materials (urban ore TMR [UO-TMR]) from four types of Japanese buildings (Japanese traditional wooden structure [ JTWS], wooden frame with walls structure [ WFS ], reinforced-concr...
Two phenomena characterize the development of the material world of the last 100 yr: The per capita growth in material consumption, and the introduction of a myriad of new materials. Together with the growth in population, this resulted in large, growing and complex material flows and stocks, particularly in urban areas. The objective of future mat...
Several metrics exist to evaluate the environmental performance of products, processes and systems. A deficiency of the present evaluation schemes is that they do not follow materials to “the very end” in the anthroposphere such as mineralization in incinerators for organic substances, and to final storage in underground structures for inorganic su...
In order to fulfill the objectives of environmental protection, today's focus on quantitative recycling rates must be amended by a more qualitative approach. Because modern products represent a mix of numerous and sometimes hazardous substances, ways must be explored to remove detrimental substances during recycling and to establish "clean cycles"....
Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills need to be managed after closure to assure long-term environmental compatibility. Aftercare can be completed when the authorities consider the landfill not likely to pose a threat to humans and the environment. In this work, a methodology for deriving site-specific aftercare completion criteria is presented and...
RDF and other high calorific value fractions derived from MSW by mechanical treatment processes contain goods such as cans, cables, zippers or batteries which are highly concentrated in metals. The objective of this study was to investigate the importance of these metal carriers (i) for total metal loads and (ii) for sampling errors. Six different...
Over the last several thousand years of human life on Earth, agricultural settlements became urban cores, and these regional settlements became tightly connected through infrastructures transporting people, materials, and information. This global network of urban systems, including ecosystems, is the anthroposphere; the physical flows and stocks of...
Building waste, which accounts for the largest waste stream, provides a substantial resource potential. Building waste needs specific processing if this potential is to be made use of in a manner that ensures both adequate quality of the recycling products and their environmental compatibility. Different methods of recycling building waste material...
Four residential buildings have been examined for concentrations of reusable and harmful substances. The study focussed on the composition of the structural materials as well as on individual construction materials, structural elements and recycled construction materials. The use of mineral construction materials, which account for some 90 % of the...
Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills are potential long-term sources of emissions. Hence, they need to be managed after closure until they do not pose a threat to humans or the environment. The case study on the Breitenau MSW landfill was performed to evaluate future emission levels for this site and to illustrate the effect of final cover install...
Questions
Questions (2)
The EU and others prescribe quantitative recycling standards, e.g. xy % of the mass of end of life vehicles must be recycled. Such standards do not take into account environmental and health issues, e.g. they do not consider hazardous substances that are recycled back to the consumer. Hence, in addition to quantitative recycling standards we need some qualitative criteria that protect consumers and the environment from recycled hazardous substances. Have you ever heard of such indicators, or can you suggest some?
Materials are extracted from natural resources, are utlized as products and often reused, and are finally discarded in so called "sinks" and "final sinks". I am looking for scientific definitions of sinks and final sinks, and I am wondering if there are any groups that look at this issue in a more general, global and systematic way.
