Sustainable Material Processing and Circularity of Critical Metals

Dr. Yang Minjun University of Leicester

Room 207 C07 Building  10.30-11.30 a.m. 18^th day of April

Abstract: The Centre for Sustainable Materials Processing at the University of Leicester is dedicated to materials chemistry research and enterprise, offering the opportunity to translate and scale-up academic research and pilot processes through interaction with industrial partners. The centre is a hub for interdepartmental collaborations, providing a critical nucleus within the University of Leicester’s materials community. This talk highlights the active projects (> £10m) and recycling ‘toolkit’ the Centre developed over the past 5-10 years in areas including short-loop recycling lithium-ion battery wastes, recovering gold from waste electronics, platinum group metals from fuel cell membranes, bismuth and antimony from X-ray protective garments and rare-earths from supermagnet. The chemical processing pathway and design to recycle initiatives are informed by techno-economy analysis with the aim for industries to uptake and scale.

The talk welcomes a broad general audience from a wide range of backgrounds, including Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Material Science. The aim of this talk is to stimulate mutual interest and synergy between Leicester and DUT to establish circularity of sustainable technologies.