News

In the framework of the EU MSCA-ETN REDMUD project, the occurrence mode of selected rare earths in neutralised-leached bauxite residue was studied by KU Leuven and NTUA. The work is published in Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy.

Within the EU H2020 SOCRATES project, SIM² KU Leuven developed a process to selectively recover lead and zinc from iron-rich jarosite residue of the zinc industry. The work is published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.

Philippe Muchez is professor at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the KU Leuven and dean of the Faculty of Science. His is head of the Ore Geology and Geofluids research unit and leads the ETN SULTAN project.

EU Horizon 2020 MCSA-ETN SULTAN kicked off in Leuven on February 11, 2019. Key items on the SULTAN Kick-off event agenda: Introduction on project management, training, outreach Pitch presentations by ESRs on their background, project, host institute S/T introduction & WP parallel sessions Secondments Cafe On February 12, the SULTAN ESRs followed a soft-skills training on Non-violent communication On February 13, ...

Recently the use of lead is being called into question by some policy makers. To provide a firm metallurgical background on its crucial role in the Circular Economy, the EU ETN SOCRATES team has just published a new Policy Brief.

In the framework of ETN REDMUD, an integrated process was developed by KU Leuven and RWTH Aachen to selectively recover Fe and REEs from slags produced during smelting of bauxite residue. The work is published in Hydrometallurgy.

ETN DEMETER proudly presents the flagship product of this 4 year-project: the first recyclable e-motor based on recycled NdFeB magnets. Featuring two of the DEMETER Researchers, the video highlights the e-motor’s ecobenefits.

Prof. Valérie Cappuyns is professor at the Faculty of Economics & Business (Campus Brussels). She works in the interdisciplinary research group CEDON. Find out more about Valérie Cappuyns in this SIM² interview.

New work by SIM² KU Leuven researchers published in Resources Conservation and Recycling demonstrates that the government policies have a much larger influence on the rare-earth supply chain disruption than physical disruptions.

How is Europe going to deal with the legacy of more than 500,000 landfills? More than 50 experts debated this question during the 2nd ELFM Seminar in the European Parliament (November 20, 2018), which was hosted by Belgian MEP Hilde Vautmans (ALDE Group). A detailed analysis of this event has now been published as a ETN NEW-MINE Policy Brief, authored ...

The EIT-labelled Master Programme on Sustainable Materials (SUMA) welcomed 24 enthusiastic students in September 2018. This 3rd cohort is the biggest cohort for SUMA so far, with selected candidates coming from all over the world.

SIM² KU Leuven researchers developed a new, selective method to recover indium from iron-rich solutions. This work, funded through EU METGROW+, was published as a golden open access paper in Separation and Purification Technology.

Between 6 and 8 November 2018, the second NEMO consortium meeting took place in Sevilla (Spain), 6 months after the NEMO project Kick-off (GD, 29.11.2018)   All NEMO Consortium partners gathered to discuss project progress and status. The main items on the agenda were: Progress and status for each work package (day 1 and day 3) Management Board meeting (day ...

Gwen Bailey, ESR 15 in EU MSCA-ETN DEMETER, was selected as the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Association Fellow of the Week. Gwen will feature in the panel debate “Are REEs still critical?” in the DEMETER Symposium (February 2019).

On Monday 12 November 2018, the EU projects NEMO, CROCODILE and ETN DEMETER were presented at the second annual Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) Event. This event offered an opportunity to a variety of stakeholders to get a fresh update about the latest EU activities in the field of Critical Raw Materials. It was co-organised by the European Commission, and the ...

After a 4 months recruitment process, we are happy to announce that the ESRs team for the SULTAN project is now complete. A total number of 240 candidates applied for the 15 ESR positions. Candidates screening, several interviews, a recruiting event in Leuven and careful deliberation were needed to choose the fifteen researchers of the project. Please meet the 15 ...

SULTAN Recruiting Event took place at Novotel, Leuven on October 18, 2018. The preselected candidates were invited to presented themselves, their background and their motivation and to asses their suitability for the ESR position they applied for. All ESR positions are now seized by 15 young researchers from all over the world. The recruiting event has been followed by the pre-kick-off meeting ...

Three years after the first ELFM Seminar in the European Parliament, a follow-up Seminar will take place on November 20, 2018, in the European Parliament (Brussels). The scope for the 2nd ELFM Seminar in the EP is broadened from landfill mining only to the development of a dynamic landfill management and mining strategy for Europe’s 500,000+ landfills. An impressive programme ...

  SULTAN is the EU H2020 ETN project for the remediation and reprocessing of sulfidic mining waste sites, providing the first-ever training programme dedicated to the reprocessing of tailings for 15 researchers. SULTAN has pooled the interdisciplinary and intersectoral expertise of leading EIT RawMaterials members, world-leading mining and chemical companies, covering all the links in the tailings-reprocessing value chain. Subscribe to our newsletter below to ...

As China’s insatiable demand for REEs continues to grow over the coming ten years, China’s domestic production will struggle to keep up in all scenarios examined herein, leading the nation to become a net importer of some REEs.