Key Enabler for a Sustainable Circular Economy of Minerals and Metals
The Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) pursues the objective of developing innovative technologies for the economy so that mineral and metalliferous raw materials can be made available and used more efficiently and recycled in an environmentally friendly manner.
Four more years of open access electron and x-ray microscope use for sustainability research
The EXCITE project (Electron and X-ray microscopy community for structural and chemical imaging techniques for Earth materials) has been bringing together the most important national and regional electron and X-ray microscopy facilities with European researchers from academia and industry at European level for four years in order to ensure their optimal use and joint development. Funding for the EXCITE network, in which the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) of the HZDR also provides its equipment, has now been extended under the name EXCITE² for four years by the European Union (EU). With a clear focus on the EU's sustainability goals, the microscopy equipment will now be available to researchers from all disciplines from April 2024 instead of just geoscientists.
From an idea to a published issue: new Elements Magazine on Geometallurgy
The HIF scientists Prof. Jens Gutzmer, Dr. Raimon Tolosana-Delgado, Dr. Lucas Pereira and Dr. Max Frenzel explain in their articles as guest editors the fundamental concepts relevant to Geometallurgy. Furthermore, the magazine review how current geometallurgical research is opening up opportunities for geoscientists to generate better economic and environmental outcomes for the global raw materials industry as part of a sustainable economy.
The BHT - FREIBERGER UNIVERSITÄTSFORUM serves the professional exchange between science, economy and society. In several specialist colloquia, participants discuss issues relating to resource extraction and processing, and they learn about current research from all faculties. The recomine alliance will present itself in a specialist colloquium on June 5, 2024.
FlexiPlant - Research Infrastructure for adaptive processing of complex raw materials
One of the challenges confronting our society today is the sustainable use of our resources. The concept of a circular economy, in which products, materials and components are reused and recycled within a loop, thus generating hardly any waste, is intended to meet this challenge. In order to recover raw materials of all kinds (e.g. rare earth elements) in an energy-efficient and function-preserving way, it is necessary to develop a new generation of adaptive and flexible technologies and digital platforms for the processing and recycling. FlexiPlant will be a globally unique research infrastructure, to develop and test scientific models, methods and technologies for the mechanical processing of raw material in a pilot scale. The digitalization and automation of the processing system are required for transferring the processes to industrial scale. As an open transfer platform, FlexiPlant will provide a variety of research and cooperation opportunities for interested partners from academia, industry and society.