News

On 17-9-2018 the Sounding Board of the SIM MaRes programme took place in Leuven to realign the programme with current needs in industry. René Wiersma (Shell) gave a lecture on the use of solvents in mining & metallurgy.

In their “Fifty Shades of Grey” project, Stelios Spathariotis and Prof. Andy Abbott (both University of Leicester) used Deep Eutectic Solvents to create a Union Jack art piece made by fifty different spots of metal colour…

PROMETHEE & BRGM are organising a milestone workshop dedicated to biohydrometallurgy on October 10, 2018. The event is highly relevant for researchers working in the EU projects CROCODILE, NEMO, METGROW+, ETN SULTAN & SOCRATES...

Prof. Koen Binnemans was given the LeCoq de Boisbaudran award for his “outstanding and long-lasting contribution” in the field of rare earth recycling. The prize was awarded at ICfE-10 (Sep’ 3–6, 2018) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

In a new ETN DEMETER Policy Brief, the authors Gwendolyn Bailey and Karel Van Acker (SIM² KU Leuven) motivate why the time has come for the electric-vehicle industry (EV industry) to start working together with the producers of rare earths (REEs). The goal of this Policy Brief is to communicate the specific needs identified by the sustainability assessment for permanent ...

SIM² KU Leuven researchers have developed a novel approach to separate samarium from cobalt originating from SmCo magnets. Their newly published paper introduces very simple and cheap-to-maintain solvent extraction processes.

On July 2nd, 2018, Dženita Avdibegović (SIM² KU Leuven) obtained her PhD degree in Chemistry. She successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled ‘Recovery of rare earths from bauxite residue leachates by functionalised sorbents‘.

Within the EU Horizon 2020 REMAGHIC project, SIM² KU Leuven developed a novel process to recover rare earths (REEs) from lamp phosphor waste by dissolution in concentrated methanesulphonic acid (MSA), which is a green solvent.

The EU Horizon 2020 MSCA-ETN CHARMING consortium is looking for a dynamic team of 15 bright and enthusiastic PhD students. The call for applicants is now officially open. PhD candidates need to apply on-line through the CHARMING application tool. The deadline for on-line applications is October 15, 2018.  On-line Recruitment Procedure (APPLY HERE) All applications proceed through the on-line recruitment ...

Applications are invited for 15 PhD positions in the new EU Horizon 2020 MSCA-ETN SULTAN project (EU Training Network for the Remediation and Reprocessing of Sulfidic Mining Waste Sites). Deadline for applications is 15-8-2018.