Full programme for ICHS 2024 is out (First International Symposium on Circular Hydrometallurgy, Mechelen, Belgium, 9-11 September 2024).

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As an external collaborator in the AWARE project we also conducted eco-workshops for children in Slovenia in order to present them e-waste and its proper handling. In the company ZEOS, d.o.o. from Slovenia, we have been dealing with the proper management...

The EIT RawMaterials AWARE team went to the Zevensprong (Leuven, BE) to talk to 40 primary school kids about the importance of e-waste recycling. Through this experience, the kids were motivated to become real recycling heroes.

In collaboration with TU Berlin, the SIM² KU Leuven Lifecycle Engineering (LCE) research group published a study that provides key knowledge on potential opportunities and limits of repair data for specific repair applications.

“The curse of ‘white oil’: electric vehicles’ dirty secret” is the attention-grabbing headline of an in-depth article on lithium mining published in The Guardian (Dec’ 8, 2020). Peter Tom Jones (SIM², KU Leuven) reacts in this piece.

Researchers from the Life Cycle Engineering (LCE) research group (SIM² KU Leuven) used X-Ray images of WEEE and applied a deep neural network to automatically detect the location of batteries to improve removal and recycling.

The lifecycle engineering (LCE) research group (SIM² KU Leuven) and the European Commission DG Joint Research Centre (Seville) have recently developed two methods to assess the repairability of energy and resource related products.

To mine or not to mine our 500,000+ landfills in Europe, that was the question addressed in MSCA-ETN NEW-MINE. In this final Policy Brief, the project coordinator addresses the impact of climate change on the safety of landfills.

In three webinars, expert panelists will explore ways “Towards a responsible Supply Chain for Electronics – From Mining to Manufacturing” and analyse the different links in the ICT supply chain, from e.g. copper production, to artisanal and small-scale mining, and worker rights in manufacturing.

The EIT-Labelled Master Programme in Sustainable Materials (SUMA) has received a funding from EIT Raw Materials to continue educating high-level EU & international students in the field of materials science and engineering.

SIM² KU Leuven and MRC are delighted to announce that they secured funding for a new EIT RawMaterials education project (DocSumECE), comprising several PhD summer schools on Entrepreneurship in the Circular Economy in 2021-22.

In March 2015 the Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy (JSM) launched its first issue. Now, just more than 5 years, JSM obtained its first Impact Factor. With a score of 2,109, the journal ranks second among TMS journals for 2019.

SOLVOMET/SIM² KU Leuven researchers developed a novel solvometallurgical approach to recover cobalt from Li-ion battery cathode materials. This work was supported by EU H2020 CROCODILE and published in the journal Green Chemistry.

On 5th November 2019, within the EIT PROJECT AWARE and specifically WP2 and WP3, the partner Relight organized a Workshop for the University of Trento students and high-school teachers. The session was organized in collaboration with the other project partners...

On 15th  May 2020, Aware project was presented by Relight in the on-line academic  seminar “ECONOMIA CIRCOLARE E RICICLO”. The webinar was organized by University of Milano-Bicocca (UNIMIB) within the Italian nation project PLS “Piano Lauree Scientifiche Scenza dei...

In the first official SIM² interview on the KU Leuven website, SIM² Director Peter Tom Jones explains the new KU Leuven Institute for Metals & Minerals’ view on the Circular Economy, against the background of the Corona pandemic.

SIM² KU Leuven researchers have developed a new solvometallurgical extraction process to produce copper from sulphidic copper ore minerals (e.g. chalcopyrite), allowing to reduce the eco-footprint of primary copper production.

SIM² KU Leuven member Prof. Erik Smolders contributed to a milestone paper in The Lancet Planetary Health. A team of Belgian and Congolese researchers studied the effects of mining-related pollution on newborns in Katanga, DRC.

SIM² KU Leuven – SOLVOMET researchers have developed a novel solvent extraction system to remove magnesium from lithium-rich solutions, allowing a major reduction of the eco-footprint of lithium recovery from brines.

A BBC Future article featuring Ana Maria Martinez (SINTEF) illustrates that old electronics are domestic mines of precious metals. Martina Orefice (SIM² KU Leuven) provides further background referring to several EU projects.

“The Missing Link of the Circular Economy 2.0” video shows why the waste of the past cannot be consigned to oblivion. A comprehensive Circular Economy vision should, therefore, find answers for Europe’s 500,000+ landfills.

How feasible is the transition to a climate-neutral economy (European Green Deal) in terms of the availability of the required (critical) metals? During the March 12 Seminar in Brussels an expert panel tried to provide answers.

The prominent journal Green Chemistry has selected a JSI paper as a “2020 Green Chemistry Hot Article”. The paper by Xuan Xu et al, is the result of pioneering work performed in the EU Horizon 2020 MSCA-ETN DEMETER project.