Back to search

NANO2021-Nanoteknologi og nye materiale

Metal-organic frameworks for recovery and separation of critical metals.

Alternative title: Metallorganiske rammeverk for gjenvinning og separasjon av kritiske metaller.

Awarded: NOK 11.9 mill.

Project Number:

314746

Application Type:

Project Period:

2021 - 2025

The world is moving towards clean, resource-efficient, and sustainable energy. This will not be possible without the availability of critical metals. The metals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, platinum, are essential in batteries, wind and solar energy, fuel cells, and most of important industrial chemical processes. Nowadays we are mainly getting these metals from ores that brings up two large problems: environmental imprint of mining and the supply dependent on political situation. A tiny part of metal supply is coming from recycling today mainly because this technology is energy- and chemical- demanding. The main idea of our project MOFSORBMET is to develop nanomaterials for adsorption-enhanced recovery of critical metals from mining and waste. We aim at decreasing the amount of chemicals and energy currently used in the industrial recovery and recycling processes. Increasing of the recovery and recycling of metals offers an opportunity to boost the share of clean energy technology in the energy sector and secure the supply driven by circular economy. Together with the University of Bergen and the industrial advisor Glencore Nikkelverk, we aim at developing and demonstrating the use of the nanomaterials for recovery and separation of critical metals. These include lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and platinum group metals among others. The international partners from Spain (BCMaterials), Sweden (Chalmers University of Technology), and Greece (University of Ioannina) will participate in the project. MOFSORBMET targets at the development of current technology to higher readiness level (TRL), (from TRL 2 to TRL 4), demonstrating recovery of at least two critical metals from two different sources with recovery over 90% and purity over 95% in three and a half years of the project duration. Results achieved so far: Since the submission of the last report, We have established a research collaboration with NOAH AS, The Central Mining Institute Poland, CSIR National Metallurgy Laboratory India (signed MOU), and the Institute for Energy Norway to verify the MOFsorbMET-developed material systems to recover metal separation in various streams. We had a setback on planned publications due to reproducibility challenges with the esults, but Ph.D. researchers have resolved these challenges and now writing the articles. We have developed and optimized a few new systems for metal separation. Our partner at UiB have also developed new organic linkers for MOFs and metal separation. UiB is working on the manuscript. MOFsorbMET research activity is welcomed in the new FME application on sustainable battery value chains. Ananya Chari participated in the NKS winter meeting of the organic section.5-7 Jan, 2023 Gausdal, Norway. Simmy Rathod attended the 9th Hydrometallurgy seminar on 7-8 March 2023 in Bergen and the international process metallurgy symposium on 01-02 November 2023 in Espoo, Finland. Sachin Chavan and Sofiia Bercha's abstracts were accepted for the oral and poster presentation at the 1st Mediterranean Conference on porous Materials Greece on 17-19 May 2023. Sofiia Bercha attended the conference, but Sachin could not attend the conference due to a severe throat infection. We have used the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) to characterize the new materials developed in this project.

A low carbon future relies on the share of clean energy technologies (Solar PV, wind, geothermal, hydro battery) in the energy sector. The clean energy technology is mineral intensive and with its growth, demand for critical metals is growing exponentially. Therefore, increasing the recovery and recycling of critical metals offers a double win, securing metal supply for clean energy development and reducing the environmental impact from mining and waste pollution. The MOFsorbMet project is investigating Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) based technology that has high potential to offer increase metal recovery while reducing the energy and chemicals used for the recovery process. MOFs are crystalline, solid, porous materials build from metal ion or metal-oxo cluster bridged by multi-dentate organic linker forming 3D network structure. Recently, IUPAC has announced MOFs among the top 10 emerging technologies. The methodology behind the project is realized in 3 interlinked research blocks: MOF development, MOF characterization and MOF testing. These research blocks are supported by 4 technical work packages (WPs): WP1-Synthesis and functionalization of MOFs, WP2- Synthesis of functional linkers, WP3-MOFs Characterization-adsorption site and mechanism WP4. Testing and demonstration of MOF for critical metal recovery. The goal of the project is to identify, develop and demonstrate the use of MOFs for the recovery and separation of critical metals. These include lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, rare earth metals (REE) and platinum group metals (PGMs). To our knowledge, this is the first project where the development of MOFs to recover critical metals from leachate produced in different metallurgy (solvo-, hydro- and Bio-metallurgy) processes is undertaken. MOFsorbMET project targets the development of technology from TRL 2 to TRL 4, demonstrating recovery of at least two critical metals from two different sources with recovery over 90% and purity over 95% (O4).

Funding scheme:

NANO2021-Nanoteknologi og nye materiale