The KU Leuven Department of Materials Engineering (MTM) is RECOVER’s Coordinator. MTM is embedded in the Faculty of Engineering and forms the core of the KU Leuven Materials Research Centre, a collaborative research centre with a yearly research expenditure of about 24 M€ and over 500 Materials researchers. The research line on Secondary Resources for Engineered Materials (SREMat) is coordinated by Prof. Dr. Yiannis Pontikes. It involves 4 post-docs, 11 PhD candidates and over 10 graduate students, and has a strong track-record in valorisation of industrial residues in inorganic polymer applications and cementitious binders.
Aughinish Alumina is one of the most technologically advanced and energy efficient facilities worldwide. Europe’s largest alumina refinery and a major alumina asset of RUSAL. Aughinish’s R&D department, led by Martin Fennell, is participating in RECOVER. The R&D department is a multidisciplinary group with chemists, mechanical and chemical engineers with access to engineering design and automation resources. The group has a track record of delivering innovative projects to the alumina division refineries within UC Rusal, the parent company. The rehabilitation of the red mud residue site at Aughinish has been a key focus of the group over many years, rather than re-use, but a deep understanding of the residue chemistry has been developed. The group has well equipped laboratories with a range of analytical and experimental equipment.
Boliden is a metals company with a commitment to sustainable development. Boliden’s roots are Nordic, but its business is global. The company’s core competence is within the fields of exploration, mining, smelting and metals recycling. Boliden has a total of approximately 4,800 employees and a turnover of SEK 34 billion. Its R&D department has been focusing on the utilization of slag produced from various company’s operations and process stages. Its R&D activities will allow Boliden to further develop and position itself as a sustainable producer in the long term.
CRM Group is a Belgian non-for-profit research organization with 245 employees, providing innovative technological solutions for the processing and manufacturing of metallic materials, from primary and secondary raw materials up to finished products. The team involved in RECOVER is embedded in the ‘Metal Production and Recycling’ Unit, active in pyrometallurgical processing of ores, scrap and metallurgical byproducts.
Metallo is a non-ferrous metals recycling and refining company, with operations in Belgium and Spain. Copper slag has been a by-product of the process for many years, and being sold at small positive value in different construction applications. With the introduction of a new slag fuming furnace, the copper slag will be cleaned from Zn and Pb contaminations, opening new valorisation perspectives.
The National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) is the oldest and most prestigious technical educational institution in Greece and takes part in RECOVER through the Laboratory of Metallurgy (LabMet), part of the School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering. In the last 10 years, LabMet attracted more than 10 million Euros in funding and produced more than 300 scientific publications. The research team is headed by Prof. Dr. Dimitrios Panias who has long experience in R&D on extractive metallurgy processing and the synthesis of inorganic polymeric materials from mining and metallurgical wastes, in particular on the development of fire resistant materials for application in the tunnel industry.
ResourceFull is a start-up consultancy firm that aims to promote industrial ecology. Its main focus is to enable Industries to reduce their environmental footprint. It was founded in January 2015 and has already provided service to companies in the non-ferrous metallurgy as well as gas production and supply. ResourceFull employs experts in business and economics, sustainability, environment and raw materials, maintaining strong ties to Belgian, European and international markets.
ZAG is the Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute. It is a public, non-profit, state owned body with as main activities fundamental and applied research, development of new methods of testing and measurement, certification and attestation of product conformity.