In summertime Cape Town, South Africa, Freiberg scientists from the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) and the TU Bergakademie presented current research results on the processing, extraction and recycling of strategic resources.

Both Anna Vanderbruggen and Rosie Blannin won the “Prix AILg TFE” for their mas­ter theses accomplished at HIF and TU Bergakademie Freiberg in the course of the EMerald mas­ter program in resources engineering. The prize is awarded by the “Association des Ingénieurs diplômés de l’Uni­versité de Liège”. The graduates will now continue their research as PhD students: Anna Vanderbruggen just joined the HIF Processing Department and Rosie Blannin will be part of the Department of Analytics.

In a symbolic ground-breaking ceremony on Wednesday 17th October, the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) marked the start of construction work on a new technical facility. The institute, which is part of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and works in close collaboration with the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, is thus further expanding its research into the sustainable extraction and recycling of strategic resources. The Free State of Saxony is funding the project with a grant of 10.2 million euros.

Without important key elements such as copper or rare earth metals, the electronics industry would grind to a halt and electricity would cease to flow. End-of-life products like discarded energy-saving lamps, mobile phones and computers could provide an important secondary source for these valuable elements; howe­ver, they are difficult to reco­ver. Unless, that is, small protein fragments are used to ‘fish’ them out – a technique described by researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the TU Bergakademie Freiberg in an article published in the specialist magazine Research in Microbiology.

The Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) – part of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and in close cooperation with TU Bergakademie Freiberg – is about to commence construction work on a new pilot plant for metallurgical processes. The purpose is to significantly expand application-oriented research into the extraction and recycling of strategic raw materials. Saxony’s State Ministry for Higher Education, Research and the Arts is funding the project with a grant of 10.2 million euros from the European Regional Development Fund.

With the founding of an association, the German Resource Research Institute is taking the next step to further promote the bundling of raw material expertise from science and industry for the German economy.

The EU-funded INFACT project, which is coordinated by Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, aims at combining the development and test of innovative, non-invasive minerals exploration ­techno­logies with an assessment of their social acceptance. For this purpose, three European reference sites will be established in Germany, Finland and Spain. Stakehol­der consultations took place at all sites in June and early July to pave the way for first technology trials which are about to start in August.

Freiberg is at the centre of efforts of European raw-materials experts who aim to show that important metals can be extracted commercially from complex, composite ores that previously could not be exploited economically. The consortia of the German national project AFK, coordinated by the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, and the European funded project FAME, managed by Wardell Armstrong International UK (WAI) and Geokompetenz­zentrum Freiberg (GKZ), have joint forces to invigorate complex ore processing by using modern rock analysis methods and compu­ter simulations. The newly designed process is now to be tested in a pilot plant trial in Freiberg with 150 tonnes of ores from the Hämmerlein-Tellerhäuser deposit in the Erzgebirge.

Analysis technology has become so sophisticated that it now affords astonishingly accurate insights into the structure of rocks and minerals. But it is not only rock in its natural state that comes in for analysis but also specially prepared samples. There is a dedicated laboratory for this at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF), part of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf. From 13th to 14th March, mineral sample pre­parators from uni­versities and research institutes in Germany, Austria and Switzerland will be gathering together here.

HZDR Press Release (Feb. 07, 2018): Profound understanding of raw materials’ characteristics is essential for process and resource efficiency in the mining as well as in the recycling sector. Material­s characterization has become a powerful tool for the acquisition of quantitative data and is already applied along the entire raw materials value chain, from the exploration of new deposits to their rehabilitation. The newly established company ERZLABOR Advanced Solutions GmbH provides analytical services for the primary as well as secondary resource industry. The team of scientists and engineers from the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) – part of HZDR – make state-of-the-art infrastructure and analytical competence available for the industry.

Developments in waste ­manage­ment are supposed to head towards a circular economy: in accordance with this ideal, all the material used in manufacturing a product should be recyclable at the end of their lifespan. But a lot still has to happen before we get that far. As studies have shown, when it comes to electronic waste, modular construction and smart sorting would help to recycle valuable metals.

In nature, raw materials do seldom occur in a pure form. The valuable particles in the ores first have to be painstakingly se­parated from other materials and enriched. The leading method for doing this is flotation. HZDR scientists examine its underlying mechanisms and microprocesses with the aim of optimizing industrial processes and improving the extraction efficiency in raw materials processing.

The Energiewende is systemically changing our use of raw materials. While the need for coal, oil and gas is decreasing in the long term, the demand for metals and construction materials for energy-efficient wind and solar plants, battery and hydrogen storage or other systems is growing. Germany is not yet fully exploiting its potential in this field.

Freiberg’s terra mineralia exhibition is offering a new series of summer workshops for anyone interested in exploring, analyzing raw materials and enriching minerals; the series is being conducted in cooperation with the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF), part of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, and other partners. All raw materials enthusiasts aged 12 and o­ver are welcome to take part. The first workshop takes place on Wednesday 28th June 2017.

For presenting his results obtained by Mineral Liberation Analysis, Duong Huu Hoang, scientific assistant at TU Bergakademie Freiberg and HIF, was awarded the first prize of the “Metallurgy, Physical and Chemical Techno­logies of Hydrocarbons Treatment” section at the Annual Conference for Young Researchers in Saint Petersburg.

The Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF), which is part of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, will receive a grant of approximately €900,000 o­ver the next three years to support the development of new ­techno­logies for the environmentally and socially sustainable as well as efficient exploration of natural resources. The EU funding will be made available by EIT RawMaterial­s, which is supported by the European Insitute of Innovation and Technology, and has already been earmarked for three new projects. The researchers are seeking to advance drone-based exploration and other innovative exploration methods.

Chile is one of the most important suppliers of copper to German industry. Within the framework of the scientific and technological cooperation between the two countries, research is now being pursued into how Chilean copper ores can be extracted in a more environmentally sustainable way. Bioactive substances derived from bacteria may replace or reduce chemicals. A further aim is to increase metal yield while extracting metals that are traditionally difficult to se­parate out, in particular the molybdenum content. The joint project between Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) – part of HZDR – and the Advanced Mining and Technology Cen­ter at the Uni­versidad de Chile in Santiago de Chile began in February.

The youngs­ters attending the Win­ter Business School (9th - 27th January 2017) come from Brazil, Colombia, China and India as well as many other parts of the world and have already graduated in subjects such as Geology, Mineral Engineering, Physics and Chemistry. They are united by a desire to identify solutions to the challenges faced by the raw materials industry and to obtain a European Master’s in Georesources Engineering. This includes a three-week win­ter school in Freiberg, Saxony. 18 students from the course are taking part.

There are many known ore deposits on Greenland, but also many sites that are difficult to reach. An innovative ‘toolbox’ based on drone-borne methods as well as specialised compu­ter software could soon make the exploration of raw materials significantly easier. Researchers from Freiberg are hereby collaborating with the Geological Research Institute of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS).

In earlier centuries, raw materials were literally hacked out of the rock. The process is vividly described in the miners’ anthem, the Steigerlied. As the concentration of valuable minerals in new finds decreased, extraction became gradually more difficult. So for the past 150 years or so, the main technique for se­parating out the ores has been flotation.

In a degree ceremony held today (08/12/17) at Stellenbosch Uni­versity, Markus Reu­ter is to be awarded an honorary PhD in Engineering for his outstanding scientific and technological contribution to the production and recycling of metals, as well as his exceptional role in the practical implementation of academic research. Since 2015, the metallurgy and recycling expert has been Director at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf and Honorary Professor for System-Integrated Material Production at TU Bergakademie Freiberg.

At the annual general meeting of the Association of Friends and Sponsors of the TU Bergakademie Freiberg on 1st December 2017, Dr Max Frenzel was awarded the 2017 Bernhard von Cotta Prize. The scientist, who is currently engaged in research at the Uni­versity of Adelaide in Australia, was honored for the outstanding work he did as part of his dissertation at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) and at the Institute of Mineralogy of the TU Bergakademie Freiberg.

Europe is about to become more attractive for the exploration of raw materials. Partners drawn from research and industry plan to develop innovative, non-invasive ­techno­logies and test them under realistic conditions. For this purpose, three European reference areas are to be established in Germany (Geyer), Finland (Sakatti) and Spain (Minas de Riotinto, Gerena). To this end, the EU is investing around 5.6 million euros o­ver the next three years in INFACT, a new research project in which 17 partners from seven countries have joined forces. The project is being coordinated by the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf.

If a raw material is in short supply, this can ad­versely affect entire industries. This is why the last decade has seen large-scale investment into research on high-tech metals, the supply of which is deemed to be at risk, and which are therefore considered critical. Researchers at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF), part of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, and at Technische Uni­versität Chemnitz have closely examined existing criticality studies, and disco­vered se­veral flaws in their methodo­logies. They are calling for a reassessment of which materials are to be designated as ‘critical’. This could lead to the inclusion of copper, iron, aluminium and other classic industrial metals in revised lists of critical raw materials.

Since last year HIF researchers have been contributing their infrastructures and know-how to the development of a rare earth deposit in the north-west of Vietnam. Prof. Quang-Van Phan, the project lea­der on the Vietnamese side, has just spent three months in Freiberg in order to push on the cooperation, accomplishing se­veral important intermediate steps.

HIF staff members have lately been successful with presenting their research at various conferences. Dr Rohan Jain, a Marie Curie Fellow at HIF’s Biotechnology Group, has received a pos­ter award for pursuing an entirely novel approach in biotechnology in order to reco­ver gallium from wastewater. PhD student Bruno Michaux, who works with the Processing Division, has won a pos­ter award for introducing a modeling and simulation approach to handle water chemistry issues in ore processing using flotation. And his colleague Haosheng Wu was just given a best student presentation award for her research dedicated to the microanalysis of raw materials (see news of 20 Sept).

Haosheng Wu, a PhD student at Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF), won a best student presentation award at the 21st International Conference on Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS). Part of HIF’s Processing Division, she applies methods of the institute’s Ion Beam Analysis Group, thus linking both teams closely. The conference took place from 10 to 15 September 2017 in Krakow, Poland, gathering representatives from both academia and industry to exchange results and new ideas on SIMS and related techniques.

Around 120 researchers, technicians and administrative staff are currently employed at HIF, which operates three different sites in Freiberg and Dresden. As a mat­ter of fact, hardly any team member will know all the others. But how can the networking and scientific exchange be facilitated? In order to achieve this, HIF’s first-e­ver science slam took place on 1 September.

There is as yet no commercially viable method of salvaging all valuable metals from the dust generated during the production of copper and zinc. The HIF is conducting research into a new process specifically targeted at recycling the rare metal indium.

The Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), a subordinate to the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), will be an important partner of the German raw materials research network GERRI.

In Germany, less than half of electronics waste is recollected again. Meagre collection quotas are just one, albeit ­very important reason why there is still so much left to do when it comes to recycling. The complex design of modern electronical devices like in a mobile phone is by itself a great challenge for reco­vering valuable metalliferous and mineral resources.

Copper and other non-ferrous metals cannot be fully broken down in mines, and residues of the valuable metals remain even after the metallurgical processes that follow. Residues are stored on tailings. The new German-Polish research project NOMECOR has two aims, namely to reclaim the metals as well as to make the mineral componen­ts of the tailings usable for cement production. The Federal Ministry for Research and Education is funding the research project for three years with approximately 500,000 euros. This is coordinated by the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) at HZDR as well as the Polish Institute for Non-ferrous Metallurgy (IMN).

In 2015, five leading German research institutes of the raw materials sector founded “GERRI” – a virtual institute that is aimed at strengthening German raw material research in the international realm. The “German Resource Research Institute“ has now reached an important stage recording, categorizing and publishing the national competencies and infrastructures of its founding partners in a database (www.gerri-germany.org).

On October 20th, Uwe Gaul State, Secretary of the Saxon Ministry of Science and the Fine Arts, together with Prof. Dr. Klaus-Die­ter Barbknecht, Rector of the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, officially inaugurated the EIT RawMaterial­s – Regional Cen­ter Freiberg. The Regional Cen­ter Freiberg is to assist Freiberg’s scientific institutions with networking across the region as well as supporting the academic education within the raw materials sector.

From 11 until 15 September international scientists exchanged their latest results at the world’s largest mineral processing congress in Canada. Researchers from Freiberg took part presenting a successful collaboration project which earned a “Young Author Award”.

Sandra Jakob of the exploration division of HZDR's Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology is the recipient of the Best Paper Award given for her lecture at the „8th Workshop on Hyperspectral Image and Signal Processing: Evolution in Remote Sensing“; her coauthors are Robert Zimmermann and Dr. Richard Gloaguen.

The global supply potential of the high-tech metals gallium and germanium is much grea­ter than actual annual production levels. This is the main conclusion from Max Frenzel’s work. Frenzel, a postgraduate student at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF), which closely cooperates with the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, is one of two recipients of the Bernd Rendel Prize for Geosciences 2016. The prize, awarded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), will be presented on 28th September at the annual conference of the German Geological Society (DGGV) in Innsbruck.

On 25 August 2016 the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology saw its first staff summer party at its new headquarters in Freiberg. And there was another reason for celebration since it has been five years now that the Helmholtz Institute was founded back then on 29 August 2011.

Last week, three mas­ter students from the EU’s Emerald program in georesources engineering presented their mas­ter theses at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg (HIF). During the past six months, the students have accomplished their work at the HIF and the Institute for Mechanical Process Engineering and Mineral Processing (MVTAT) of the TU Bergakademie Freiberg.

Joint press release published on August 10, 2016: Physicists from the Technical Uni­versity of Munich (TUM) have succeeded in detecting a time-resolved supernova signal in the Earth’s microfossil record. As the group of Prof. Shawn Bishop could show, the supernova signal was first detectable at a time starting about 2.7 Million years ago. According to the researcher’s analyses, our solar system spent one Million years to transit trough the remnants of a supernova. Also involved in the project were researchers at HZDR's Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology.

The technical expertise of the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) has been requested to support mineral exploration of zinc deposits in West Greenland. The scientists of the HIF, part of the HZDR, are combining the use of drones alongside various other more traditional exploration methods. The aim of this project is to produce high-resolution geological maps of two remote areas of approximately 15 km2 each.

An international team of scientists has found evidence of a series of massive supernova explosions near our solar system, which showered the Earth with radioactive debris. The scientists found radioactive iron-60 in sediment and crust samples taken from the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Researchers at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology are developing a new strategy for processing the Vietnamese “Nam Xe” rare earth ore deposits in an environmentally friendly and economical manner. Optical sensors are to be employed for the first time in this endeavor. The recently initiated project, in cooperation with the UVR-FIA GmbH, is part of the CLIENT funding measure. Through this measure, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research fosters the cooperation with newly industrialized countries, thus supporting sustainable climate protection and environmental ­techno­logies as well as economic development.