Gallium is a rare metal, but it is widely used in the high-tech industry. This extreme contrast makes recycling indispensable. Howe­ver, current recycling processes are costly and chemically polluted. Biotechnological approaches, therefore, rely on peptides, as they are able to bind metallic particles, minerals and metal ions in an environmentally friendly manner and to differentiate them in a targeted manner. Scientists at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf have now shown (DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.125366), that peptide-based material can be used for the extraction of gallium from production wastewa­ter caused by the semiconductor industry.

Can the recycling of mining waste become a new business? That is the main question to be addressed in the Lunch Event & Debate on April 27th, 2021. The event co-hosted by se­veral EU funded remining projects aims to present novel solutions for the treatment of mining waste to stakeholders from ...

The FineFuture project researches new ways to exploit the reco­very of fine particle fractions in metalliferous raw materials. Se­parating ­very fine particles is important for the valorization of multiple mineral resources, for example nickel, kaolin, feldspar, talc and magnesite. With a particular focus on froth flotation, the project aims at enabling the development of groundbreaking ­techno­logies in the raw materials sector.