On the 16th of March 2016 the European Research Council (ERC) formally approved the Advanced Grant proposal of Prof. Koen Binnemans (SIM² KU Leuven & RARE³ KU Leuven). SOLCRIMET’s aim is to successfully apply a ground-breaking metallurgical approach – solvometallurgy – to the extraction of specific critical metals, i.e. rare earths, tantalum, niobium, cobalt, indium, gallium, germanium and antimony, which are key enablers of the required transition to a low-carbon, circular economy. The approach involves the discovery of non-aqueous solvent pairs that are immiscible and allow the extraction of metal complexes at moderate temperatures, leading to high-purity recycled metals. The possibility to recycle critical metals with energy-efficient, low-cost processes will have a significant impact on the global recycling rates of these metals.
