by Heiko Weckbrodt on 4. December 2014
Procedure is now used in lamp company Narva
Freiberg, 4. December 2014: Every day in Germany strategically important raw materials such as the "rare earths" worth several thousand euros are buried in underground landfills as hazardous waste. Chemists of the Bergakademie Freiberg have now developed, together with industry partners, a technology to recover these elements from the group of the "rare earths" highly pure. This "SepSelsa" method ("Separation of rare earths from waste requiring disposal in Saxony") is "a quantum leap in rare earth recycling", estimated the TU Freiberg.
Process is now being used at Narva
These elements are contained in old smartphones, extinguished neon tubes and screened-out computer screens, for example. To win her back, she has Institute of Technical Chemistry At the Bergakademie a separation process for the production waste in the lighting company "Narva" in fire Erbisdorf conceived. The "FNE Entsorgungsdienste Freiberg GmbH" then continue to use these rare earth-containing phosphors to deliver the recovered raw materials back to Narva and to enable a closed cycle, the researchers said.
Jump out of laboratory on an industrial scale
"In fact, it is one of the few processes that has made the leap from the laboratory to industrial production, while at the same time being economical," explained Prof. Martin Bertau, Director of the Institute of Technical Chemistry. "Its significance lies in the fact that we can easily process all phosphors regardless of their rare earth contents. The big advantage: we isolate the metals in pure form from each other - without innumerable separation stages, as is the case in the classical rare earth processing. "In the process, even the toxic mercury is extracted highly pure. The Saxon Ministry of Science has the Freibergs for this development as an exemplary technology transfer project honored in the competition "wissen.schafft.arbeit".
Freiberg profiles itself as a resource research location
Freiberg has been working for some time to make a name for itself as a leading location for ecological resource recovery. In addition to the Bergakademie has on it, among other things, a Freiberg Foreign Institute of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) specializes in this economically strategic sector. Author: Heiko Weckbrodt
