News

Following a 25-year VP-level career at Umicore, Ben Gilliams has decided to make a remarkable career switch. On January 9, Ben started as Senior Valorisation Director at SOLVOMET ISC, one of SIM² KU Leuven’s innovation flagships.

The SOLVOMET Group is delighted to announce the publication of its long-awaited position paper “The Twelve Principles of Circular Hydrometalllurgy” in the Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy.

SIM2 KU Leuven researchers demonstrated that the dilution of the ionic liquid [A336][HSO4] improves the hydrodynamics and the mass-transfer performance of the purification of Ge(IV) by solvent extraction in milliflow reactors.

In May 2020 the SOLVOMET Group filed the patent application “Method for producing battery grade lithium hydroxide monohydrate” that became public in November 2021. The second part of the patented flowsheet is now fully disclosed in JSM.

On November 15, 20222, the closing event for NEMO was organised as a Satellite Event of the 7th EU Raw Materials week. The key outcomes of the project were presented. All presentations are now available.

The closing EU CROCODILE video has been released. Featuring Nand Peeters (KU Leuven), Flavia Forte (Eco Recycling) and Zhangqi Wang (Accurec), the video covers the recycling value chain for the recovery and refining of Co from spent Li-ion batteries.

On October 20, 2022, the documentary “Responsible Mining in Europe: A new paradigm to counter climate change” was officially launched. Here we provide an overview of testimonials as obtained from various experts worldwide.

SAVE THE DATE for the satellite event of the EU Raw Materials Week “(Re)mining extractive waste – Perspectives for the EU?” (Closing NEMO event – Le Plaza Hotel, Brussels, 15 November 2022, 2 pm).

SOLVOMET/SIM2 researchers have demonstrated in the journal Green Chemistry that choline chloride-ethylene glycol based deep-eutectic solvents (DESs) are not stable during high-temperature leaching processes for cobalt recovery.

SIM² KU Leuven has secured Horizon Europe funding for the IA EXCEED project, which stands for “Cost-effective, sustainable and responsible extraction routes for recovering distinct critical metals and industrial minerals as by-products from key EU hard-rock lithium projects”.