Bacteria can get the most value out of old cell phones. Microbiologist Stefan Ratering treats - disassembled - old cell phones with microorganisms in order to dissolve the rare earths out of them. Recycled materials specialist Claudia Güth tries to recover the largest possible amount of the precious material from fluorescent tubes and lamp bulbs, whose coated surfaces consist of these sought-after metals. When finely chopping up the starting material, the researchers use various aids: small spheres, for example, which can do great grinding work.

Roland Gauß, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with "high-performance permanent magnets", such as those used in hard drives, automobiles and wind turbines. The scientist and archaeologist works on how these magnets can be processed and recycled, or how the materials can be optimized to handle a small amount of rare earths.

The three scientists work for the new "Fraunhofer Project Group for Recyclables and Resource Strategies" in Hanau, which started work last fall. Currently, researchers are setting up their laboratories at the Hanau-Wolfgang Industrial Park. They use rooms on the fourth floor of the company "Umicore", an internationally operating group for material technology, which naturally has great interest in progress in recycling and replacing valuable materials.

New construction planned

However, the "Umicore" domicile is only an interim solution. Later, the scientists will work in a new building for which the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is currently seeking a suitable space together with the city of Hanau. Chief Economist Ralf-Rainer Piesold (FDP) speaks of "one of the most important settlements of recent years", which also benefits the Hanau-based high-tech companies.

However, Hanau is not the only seat of this project group: at the same time, Fraunhofer has also settled in the Bavarian Alzenau. The scientists from both locations will work closely together in the future; There is also intensive cooperation with the universities in Darmstadt, Gießen, Würzburg and Augsburg.

Currently, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in Hanau employs six scientists, in Alzenau it is 14. Overall, the team at these two locations should once include 50 to 60 employees, says Stefan Ratering. The state of Hesse and the Free State of Bavaria will together invest just under 50 million euros in the development of the two facilities in the coming years.

Focal points of research are the search for methods, in particular the rare earths, but also to recover critical metals, as well as to find substitutes and modes of action, which develop the same effect. No easy task, if only because rare earths in the finished products are usually mixed with other substances and must be chemically separated consuming.

In addition, the staff should advise policy and industry, it should be achieved, among other things, that devices containing these substances, not just land in the waste. Critical metals bear this name, "because one fears that they might not be so easily available at some point, for example, because the supplies are running out," explains Stefan Ratering; Gold belongs to this group.

The situation is different with the rare earths, which are the main focus of the Fraunhofer scientists. The commodity group of these "rare earth metals" 17 include chemical elements whose names such as lanthanum, holmium, europium or neodymium laymen usually say nothing, but which are an indispensable part of modern technology: They are in cell phones, TVs, hybrid and electric motors, in spark plugs, the hard disks of computers, in headphones and loudspeakers, in energy saving lamps and LED headlamps, in batteries and accumulators, the strong magnets of wind turbines, in nuclear medicine tomographs, in nuclear reactor control rods, in plastic polishers and dental fillings.

And the demand for rare earths is constantly growing, says Roland Gauss. It is estimated that in the coming years it will increase worldwide from the current 135.000 to nearly 200.000 tonnes per year.

Unlike their name suggests, the rare earths are not really rare, their supplies could last long. The difficulties in these metals are different: The degradation is often associated with inhumane conditions: "It is a dirty mining," says Stefan Ratering, "the workers come in contact with many acids and alkalis." In addition, adds Roland Gauss, be Rare earths often "socialized" with radioactive substances - that is, they occur together - and burden the environment of an entire region by their degradation.

Energy transition increases demand

A background that should not be left out of the energy transition is Roland Gauss, the man with the magnets as his specialty. Kiloweise these are needed for the engines in the new wind farms, the rare earth metals are an integral part of it: "As well as the history of production, the material cycle, know," says Gauss, who also in the green energy of "Holistic view" is important. "Wind power is a major reason for the huge increase in the demand for permanent magnets," he says.

Economically problematic is the fact that China holds a monopoly position in the rare earths with more than 97 percent of the world production - so that prices dictated and driven them due to the steadily growing demand enormously, sometimes by up to 4000 percent as Professor Gerhard Sextl, head of the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research and initiator of the new project group, says.

The "targeted collection" of discarded objects with the precious raw materials is becoming increasingly important in view of the complex problem of the rare earths, says Roland Gauss. This also requires a major rethink in society: So far most cell phone owners throw their discarded models carelessly away; not even five percent arrive in Germany at the recycling companies.

Open up scrap yards

And so it is not surprising that according to the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources so far only one percent of all rare earths used are recycled in Germany. The Fraunhofer scientists also want to change this state with the help of their research. Although no rare earths are being promoted in Europe. But: "It's about opening up their urban deposits," says Gauss. What he means by that? The scientist laughs: "Our junkyards, for example. What's lying around there we have to understand as raw materials. "