Recycling of electronic waste to recover the metal value is of prime importance, especially for metals with limited resources. An electrochemical approach should be an interesting option to develop sustainable recycling processes. The electrochemical deposition of tin was studied by cyclic...
Anode gas bubble behavior and anode effect on graphite and industrial carbon rod-shaped anode in a cryolite melt have been studied using a see-through furnace. The different carbon materials have different properties which can affect bubble behavior and electrochemical properties. Industrial carbon...
Iron metal is traditionally produced by carbothermic reduction in a blast furnace; an effective, but capital and energy intensive method that produces large amounts of CO2, SO2 and a variety of other contaminating byproducts. An alternative route to produce iron might be electrolysis in aqueous...
The anode potential has been shown to be highly dependent on anode geometry and orientation in the Hall–Héroult process. This work is an experimental laboratory scale study of the effect of anode geometry and orientation on bubble formation and detachment for four different anode designs: horizontal...
The use of molten salts as “solvents” offers interesting possibilities for the treatment of ores, industrial by-products as well as scraps, allowing the development of processes that are mid-way between pyro- and hydrometallurgy, with the advantage of salts offering a wide choice of chemical and...
A new kind of membrane free liquid metal battery was developed. The battery employs liquid sodium and zinc as electrodes both in liquid state, and NaCl-CaCl2 molten salts as electrolyte. The discharge flat voltage is in the range of about 1.4 V–1.8 V, and the cycle efficiency achieved is about...
Choline Chloride-Ethylene Glycol DES mixture (ethaline) is considered a green solvent and is one of the most popular DESs to combine with electrochemical recovery processes due to its superior electrochemical properties compared to other DES systems. In this work, electrochemical behaviour of...
Molten Oxide Electrolysis (MOE) is a new CO2-free technology that could alleviate the environmental impact of ferroalloy production. In this work the objectives were to perform (i) experimental lab scale studies of MOE for Mn from MnO using synthetic raw materials and a commercial Ni–Cr–Fe alloy as...
Gas bubble behavior on a carbon anode in a cryolite melt has been studied using a see-through cell. The phenomena studied have been growth, coalescence, detachment, and wetting during electrolysis. The surface orientation affects bubble behavior. Therefore, two different anode designs were tested...
Tungsten is a basic metal commodity that is classified as critical raw material (CRM) by the European Commission (EC) with the highest economical importance compared to other CRM. Thanks to its unique properties, secure W supply is critical to all industrial applications involving cutting or...
One of the main applications of REs by value is in permanent magnets, especially those magnets based on neodymium alloys. This is mainly due to the growing use of electrical and hybrid-electrical vehicles. Then the increase of waste streams (end-of-life products and manufacturing scrap) related...
One of the most important sources of renewable energy is solar energy, and the estimated future growth in this sector will require large amounts of materials. Solar panels have a life span of 25–30 years, and developing recycling processes to recover the strategic materials is critical considering...
PLATInum group metals Recovery Using Secondary raw materials (PLATIRUS), a European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 project, aims to address the platinum group metal (pgm) supply security within Europe by developing novel and greener pgm recycling processes for autocatalysts, mining and electronic wastes...
The recent exponential growth in the Li ion batteries (LIB) market, is largely driven by the demand for electric vehicles and the general transition to a green and digital economy. It is therefore imperative to develop more effective and economic processes for recovering battery raw materials such...
Reducing the number of stages, energy costs and carbon footprint of recycling processes is essential to overcome environmental challenges. The interest in replacing the acids used in traditional hydrometallurgical methods with deep eutectic solvents (DES), which are less toxic and more...
...researchers will be developing entirely new recycling methods based on laboratory-scale high-temperature electrolysis”, explains SINTEF researcher Ana Maria Martinez. The project has received funding from the EU’s innovation and research programme Horizon 2020 (under GA no. 730224), and involves a total of...
...primary metals sourced from these countries may be low, but the real price often has to be paid by the local environment and its inhabitants”, says Ana Maria Martinez, who is a Senior Research Scientist at SINTEF. “Issues surrounding employment conditions and the environment are good enough reasons to focus...
Ana Maria Martinez, senior researcher at SINTEF Industry, leads one of the projects attempting to find good European recycling solutions that can provide access to more of these critical raw materials. Photo: Thor Nielsen Standard The smartphone, electric cars, hydrogen storage, wind turbines. The...
...politically unstable countries, how easy it is for key value chains to be seriously disrupted, and how vulnerable our European economic model is. Ana Maria Martinez is a research scientist at SINTEF who works on developing innovative and enviornmentally friendly technologies designed to recover critical raw...
...in process industries, access to energy for CO2 capture is a limiting factor. The focus of the study is on partial CO2 capture and techno–economic analyses and cost estimation. As the term implies, with partial CO2 capture the aim is not to capture as close to 100 percent of the CO2 as possible, but rather...