Raising public awareness on electronic waste as a source of valuable materials (AWARE)
a Wider Society Learning project of
AWARE. Raising public awareness on electronic waste as a source of valuable materials
The aim of the project is to increase the share of waste ending up in official take-back systems instead of losing the resource to waste disposal or incineration plants and collection outside official take-back systems. To achieve that, the project focuses on education and involvement of school children, both to raise the awareness of end-of-life electronics as a resource, and through them to bring the message into families and the society as whole.
Videos
News
Join us at ICHS 2024 Symposium (9-11 Sep 2024, Mechelen)
Full programme for ICHS 2024 is out (First International Symposium on Circular Hydrometallurgy, Mechelen, Belgium, 9-11 September 2024).
“Europe’s Mining Renaissance, a Catalyst for Climate Neutrality”, the debate
On March 27, 2024, a new documentary entitled “Europe’s Mining Renaissance”, will premiere in Leuven during the DOCVILLE film festival. After the film a high-level panel discussion will take place, featuring Ia Modin, Julia Poliscanova, Nick Meynen, Peter Tom Jones and John Vandaele.
Press Release: “The Sami Perspective: a new mini-documentary”
The long-awaited mini-documentary “The Sami Perspective” is now available. The film tries to understand why the indigenous reindeer-herding Sami communities are so strongly opposed to metal mining in the North of Sweden. This joint press release provides the essential background.
Four lessons learned from PROMETIA Tech Tour 2022 – Northern Sweden
During 4 days, young students and researchers from 9 different institutions gathered in Sweden to visit mines, smelters, R&D centers and industrial plants. Here is the report of Carlos Quintero (SOLVOMET/SIM² KU Leuven).
Global perspectives on reprocessing of mine tailings (High-level expert panel)
On March 10, 2022, the joint NEMO/CROCODILE/TARANTULA expert panel discussed the “Global perspectives on the reprocessing of mine tailings”. The objective was to find common ground and to enable the elaboration of specific EU policy recommendations.
Boosting the repair & recycling options for EoL electrical consumer products
The Lifecycle Engineering research group (SIM²) has explored a new procedure to identify EoL electrical products by evaluating an image of the device’s product label. The work was published in Journal of Industrial Ecology.
Recovery of copper, zinc and lead from photovoltaic panel residues
Within the EU ETN SULTAN and PEACOC projects, SOLVOMET/SIM2 KU Leuven and VITO researchers developed a process to recover copper, zinc and lead from chloride leachates of PV residues. The work was published in RSC Advances.
Recovery of REEs from spent fluorescent lamps using methanesulfonic acid (MSA)
SIM²/SOLVOMET developed a new solvometallurgical process, using methanesulfonic acid (MSA), for the selective recovery of REEs from spent fluorescent lamps. The work was published in Industrial Engineering and Chemistry Research.
Rare-earth recycling needs market intervention (Nature Reviews Materials)
SIM2 KU Leuven’s Koen Binnemans and Peter Tom Jones published a Comment article “Rare-earth recycling needs market intervention” in Nature Reviews Materials (IF = 75). The paper was co-authored by magnet expert Paul McGuiness.
How to recover and purify platinum-group metals from spent autocatalysts?
SOLVOMET/SIM2 KU Leuven researchers developed three methods to recover & purify Pd, Pt and Rh from spent autocatalysts. This work, which was performed in EU PLATIRUS, is featured in journal Johnson Matthey Technology Review.