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Daigo Lab
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The lab studies how resources and materials flow through society and designs a circular society.
AboutAbout the lab
Tracing the flows of materials and energy
The Daigo Lab studies where the resources that society needs come from and where they go.
The lab views industrial activity as a kind of "metabolism" that takes in and transforms materials and energy, and works to uncover how it operates.
Focusing on materials such as steel, the lab designs recycling systems that take into account the variability of impurities mixed into scrap.
Based on life cycle assessment (LCA), the lab also develops evaluation methods that look ahead to future technologies and societies.
Key terms
- Material Flow Analysis (MFA)
- A method for quantitatively tracing how much of a resource or material flows through society, from where to where, and where it accumulates.
- Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
- A method for evaluating environmental impact by looking at the entire life of a product, from raw material extraction to disposal.
- Scrap
- Metal waste recovered from used products, buildings, and the like. It is melted down and used again as a raw material for new materials.
NewsLab news
A co-authored paper on converting waste plastic was accepted by Nature
A paper on the effect of international trade on steel recycling was accepted by an academic journal
A doctoral student received the Student Excellent Poster Presentation Award from the Institute of Life Cycle Assessment, Japan
ResearchResearch themes
Aiming for sustainable use of resources and energy, the lab builds models that represent how materials accumulate and flow within society (material stock and flow models). Combining multiple methods, it covers everything from nanometer-scale material microstructures to global resource circulation.
*Illustrative imageTracing resource flows (MFA)
Targeting steel, aluminum, copper, rare earths, and other materials, the lab quantifies how resources circulate across society as a whole and how much material has accumulated in society.
*Illustrative imageEvaluating environmental impact (LCA)
The lab evaluates environmental impacts by looking not only at individual products but at society as a whole. It also develops LCA targeting future societies, as well as new evaluation methods that use large language models.
*Illustrative imageInvestigating the field and turning it into data
Through surveys of scrap yards, analysis of scrap, and image analysis using deep learning, the lab observes social phenomena that no one has yet been able to turn into data.
*Illustrative imagePredicting future society
The lab represents material demand, resource circulation, recycling, supply risks, and more with mathematical models, and simulates future society.
MembersFaculty
The members of the Daigo Lab consist of faculty, project researchers, doctoral and master's students, and technical assistants.As of 2026
- ProfessorIchiro DaigoPublications ↗
- Project Assistant ProfessorJialing NiPublications ↗
- Project Assistant ProfessorNaoki YokokawaPublications ↗
VoicesStudent voices
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RelatedLabs similar to Daigo Lab
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “CompactedSteelScraps” Rotor DB / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Tracing resource flows (MFA): “Aluminum ingots loaded on truck” Fumikas Sagisavas / CC0 (cropped)
- Evaluating environmental impact (LCA): “Blast Furnaces at Scunthorpe - geograph.org.uk - 5718650” Peter Goodwin / CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)
- Investigating the field and turning it into data: “Scrap metal and cranes - geograph.org.uk - 1009143” Hugh Venables / CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)
- Predicting future society: “Relative change in main global economic and environmental indicators from 1970 to 2017” Authors of the study: Thomas Wiedmann, Manfred Lenzen, Lorenz T. Keyßer & Julia K. Steinberger / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Hoshino Lab): “CompactedSteelScraps” Rotor DB / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Matsuura Lab): “Allegheny Ludlum steel furnace” Alfred T. Palmer / Public domain (cropped)
- Related lab (Mizoguchi Lab): “Aluminium Atomic lattice” Matheustunes / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Yoshida Lab): “Superabsorber Hydrogel KSG 2917 pK” Petra Klawikowski / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
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