Recycling Research Foundation announces scholarship winner

The Recycling Research Foundation (RRF), a Washington-based nonprofit organization closely associated with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), has named Joseph Grogan as the recipient of its 2014 National Scholarship. The scholarship awards $5,000 to an individual seeking a graduate degree in a field that supports the scrap processing and recycling industry as a whole.

“The Recycling Research Foundation is proud to honor Joseph Grogan with this scholarship as he pursues an education that will well-prepare him for a future in the recycling industry,” says ISRI President Robin Wiener. “One of the goals of this scholarship is to generate interest in recycling careers and there is no doubt that with the knowledge he gains from his education, Joseph will be able to make significant contributions to the recycling industry in many areas.”

Grogan’s research involved developing a process to remove the zinc coating from galvanized scrap. “This process will accept galvanized scrap as a feed and produce separate dezinced ferrous scrap and value-added zinc products, recycling the galvanized steel in its entirety,” Grogan says.

Grogan notes that the dezinced ferrous scrap material will be used as an alternative feed material to a foundry that requires zero zinc fuming, for reasons including occupational health and safety concerns.

Grogan is a 2015 Ph.D. Candidate in Metallurgical Engineering at Colorado School of Mines, currently studying at the Kroll Institute for Extractive Metallurgy.

Over the last 10 years, the RRF has both offered scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students and funded research beneficial to the recycling industry.

Since 2002, RRF has awarded nearly $1 million in scholarships to more than 700 students and has overseen research into the recycling of electronic scrap.