News

Within the SMART project, Nerea Rodriguez et al. have shown that Deep Eutectic Solvents based on carboxylic acids and choline chloride are not stable in time nor at high temperatures. The work was published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.

The EC’s Joint Research Centre has published a milestone report on the recovery of cricial raw materials (CRMs) from mining waste and landfills. SIM² KU Leuven & EURELCO coordinator Peter Tom Jones discusses the key conclusions of the report.

On June 21st, Martina Orefice obtained her PhD degree in Chemistry. She successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled “Solvometallurgical recovery of metal values from Sm‒Co and Nd‒Fe‒B permanent magnets”.

Within the framework of the ETN DEMETER project rare-earth permanent magnets were treated with solvometallurgical solutions to remove the metalllic coating prior to direct recycling. The work is published in RSC Advances

The high thermal stability of Cyphos IL 101 allowed SIM² KU Leuven researchers to investigate the electrochemical behavior of indium at temperatures between 100 °C and 180 °C. The electrochemical deposition of indium followed a two-step process. The work was published in Green Chemistry.

Rare-earths permanent magnets were treated with solvometallurgical solutions of Br2 in organic solvents to remove the Ni-Cu-Ni coating prior to direct recycling. A comparison with 2 M HNO3 treatment proved the advantages of the solvometallurgical process.

Germanium is a precious metal which is mainly used as a semiconductor in electronics and infrared optic industries, and as a polymerisation catalyst for the production of polyethylene terephthalate. Due to its high supply risk and its high economic importance, germanium is considered as one of Europe’s critical metals

On April 1-5, 2019, the 6th Slag Valorisation Symposium took place. More than 200 persons experienced at first hand that slag valorisation has been transformed from an academic concept into an industrial success story.

Chemiemagazine, a Dutch monthly magazine of the Chemical Industry, has published a feature article on the scarcity of (critical) metals and other raw materials (March 2019, 40-42). SIM² KU Leuven provided its view on this crucial issue for Europe.

A solvometallurgical route for recycling of SmCo permanent magnets was developed by researchers from the SOLVOMET Group (SIM² KU Leuven). The method is based on non-aqueous solvent extraction to minimize water consumption.