Bernd Friedrich

RWTH Aachen University · IME Process Metallurgy and Metal Recycling

The surge in Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) generation, reaching 53.6 million metric tons (Mt) in 2019, demands efficient recycling solutions. This study focuses on the Shredder Light Fraction (SLF), a material stream derived from the mechanical pre-processing of WEEE, which is considered "municipal waste". SLF constitutes 4.2% of...

Because of their high mixing entropies, multi-component alloys can exhibit enhanced catalytic activity compared to traditional catalysts in various chemical reactions, including hydrogenation, oxidation, and reduction processes. In this work, new AgCoCuFeNi high entropy alloy nanoparticles were synthesized by the hydrogen reduction-assisted ultraso...

The excellent chemical resistance of gold is an important property of the precious metal, but it becomes a disadvantage when it comes to gold extraction. Many metallurgical processes are based on highly aggressive or toxic reagents. Especially artisanal and small-scale gold mining activities are heavily criticized, as their environmental impact can...

High process control and product quality standards in industry and scientific research demand exact temperature determination for metallurgical systems. In many cases, reliable information can be obtained via thermocouple measurements. Still, this option is unfeasible for technologically advanced processes such as consumable vacuum arc remelting du...

Due to increasing electrification and therefore demand for battery raw materials, their recovery from secondary sources like spent lithium-ion batteries is highly important. One process option is a pyrometallurgical route to enrich cobalt, nickel, and copper in an alloy. In current industrial smelting processes, the contained lithium and aluminum a...

Due to their unique properties, iron nanoparticles find diverse applications across various fields, including catalysis, electronics, wastewater treatment, and energy storage. Nano-iron particles are mostly sub-micrometer particles that are highly reactive to both air (oxygen) and water, and in nanoparticles (size below 100 nm), it is even more rap...

NdFeB magnets are widely used in various applications including electric and hybrid vehicles, wind turbines, and computer hard drives. They contain approximately 31–32 wt% Rare Earth Elements (REEs), mainly neodymium (Nd) and praseodymium (Pr), and are produced by molten salt electrolysis using fluoride electrolytes. However, anode passivation or a...

In this presentation, the possibilities for producing precursors (master alloys) by metallothermy are presented using the example of a low-oxygen Ti-6Al-4V alloy, an equimolar high-entropy alloy (HEA) and scandium-containing aluminium alloys. The use of metal oxides and/or salts for metallothermal reduction eliminates the multiple process steps of...

Sulfating roasting tests were conducted with different agents to investigate lithium recovery from spent lithium-ion manganese oxide (LMO) batteries. In this study, CaSO4 and CaCO3 were used as reactants, and the optimal temperature, residence time, and molar fraction of CaSO4 in a static reactor were determined. In the experiments, the temperature...

The widespread interest in intermetallic compounds has driven the development of their structures and properties, as well as their applications as alternative structural and potentially functional materials. As more and more intermetallic compounds with complex compositions enter the application market, their performance improvement and sustainable...

The presence of strategic metals and critical raw materials in spent Lithium-ion batteries makes recycling this material stream an essential topic for industry, academics and society. However, many research works in battery recycling focus on static parameter study. The kinetics of recycling process are rarely studied because of the delayed informa...

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) production has surged globally, reaching 53.6 million metric tons in 2019, with an estimated 74.7 million projected by 2030. This necessitates efficient recycling solutions. Shredder Light Fraction (SLF) waste, comprising valuable metals and complex organics, poses unique challenges. Our research int...

High process control and product quality standards in industry and scientific research demand exact temperature determination for metallurgical systems. In many cases, reliable information can be obtained via thermocouple measurements. Still, this option is unfeasible for technologically advanced processes such as consumable vacuum arc remelting du...

Due to increasing electrification and therefore demand for battery raw materials, their recovery from secondary sources like spent lithium-ion batteries is highly important. One process option is a pyrometallurgical route to enrich cobalt, nickel and copper in an alloy. In current industrial smelting processes, the contained lithium and aluminum ar...

The interest in ultra-pure metals is steadily growing due to the increasing demand for these materials in modern technology. To be able to meet the increasing demand in the future, it is necessary to implement more efficient and productive processes. As a fractional crystallization method in this application area, the cooled finger method exhibits...

Introduction/purpose: Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe (75 % by mass) and the lightest element (with a density of 0.00082 g/cm3 ) which consists of only one proton and one electron. Because of its presence in many different forms such as gaseous hydrogen, its plasma species, water, acid, alkaline, ammonia and hydrocarbons, it h...

The exceptional chemical resistance of gold is a significant property of this precious metal, but it can pose challenges when it comes to gold extraction. Many metallurgical processes rely on highly aggressive or toxic reagents, and artisanal and small-scale gold mining activities, in particular, have faced criticism due to their difficult-to-contr...

The objective of this study is to describe primary lithium production and to summarize the methods for combined mechanical and hydrometallurgical recycling of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). This study also aims to draw attention to the problem of lithium losses, which occur in individual recycling steps. The first step of hydrometallurgical treatmen...

In this presentation and the paper from the EMC proceedings, methods for increasing the purity of NiCr alloys in the vacuum induction furnace are investigated. This is to be achieved, on the one hand, by preventing non-metallic inclusions and, on the other hand, by various refining processes that are to be integrated into the vacuum induction furna...

This presentation from EMC-proceedings shows a novel process to recycle rare earth elements from spent NdFeB magnets, producing secondary rare earth metal alloy with up to 72wt.% Nd and 23wt. % Pr.

Intermetallic compounds (IMCs) constitute a unique class of metallic materials that have potential to be new-generation materials for structural and functional applications. Due to the high interest and potential performance in eutectic composites and other Al-based material, Al2Cu is one of them. It is well known that trace impurities have a signi...

The recycling of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is becoming increasingly important regarding the expansion of electromobility and aspects of raw material supply. Pre-treatment and liberation are crucial for a sufficient recovery of all relevant materials from LIBs. Organic removal and phase transformations by thermal pre-treatment are beneficial in m...

This presentation and the paper from EMC-proceedings is investigating influencing factors of the hydrogen reduction. Low copper containing slags are reduced by the injection of hydrogen with different copper concentrations, flow rates and hydrogen ratios. To calculate the influence rate constants are used.

Due to constantly increasing demands on Cu-Cr-Zr alloys, conventional manufacturing processes such as melting and casting under controlled atmospheres such as vacuum or high-purity inert gases are increasingly reaching their limits in terms of purity and non-metallic inclusions. For the required refining, electroslag remelting (ESR) is a conceivabl...

The importance of gold recovery from waste printed circuit boards is continuously increasing due to raising gold prices and demand as well as the need for innovative and flexible recycling methods for this complex waste stream. The state-of-the-art recycling process aims at the pyrometallurgical recovery of noble metals, mainly using a copper colle...

The recycling of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is becoming increasingly important regarding the expansion of electromobility and aspects of raw material supply. Pre-treatment and liberation are crucial for a sufficient recovery of all relevant materials from LIBs. Organic removal and phase transformations by thermal pre-treatment are beneficial in m...

Direct emissions due to the use of carbon-based fossil-reducing agents contribute to the overall CO 2 emissions of pyrometallurgical production processes. This study investigated the replacement of fossil coke by silicon-rich cutting waste from the solar wafer cutting process to produce ferrochrome in an electric arc furnace. Laboratory test work a...

The presence of strategic metals and critical raw materials in spent LIB makes recycling this material stream an essential topic for industry, academics and society. Current developments in recycling technology are leading to generating a substantial amount of process data from diverse recycling strategies for LIBs. However, large amounts of these...

Due to the increasing demand for energy storage systems, especially in the context of the expansion of electromobility, the recycling of lithium-ion batteries is moving into the focus of industry and research. One recycling approach uses the pyrometallurgical smelting process as a splitting operation of the more noble metals Cu, Ni and Co from the...

Assessing the crystallization and segregation of Ta-rich mineral phases in WEEE pyrometallurgical recycling

The industrial extraction of niobium (Nb) and tantalum (Ta) from tin slag usually involves energy-intensive pyrometallurgical process steps, the use of hydrofluoric acid or a combination of both. This entails high operating costs, negative environmental impacts and safety risks. At the same time, many valuable metals such as Al, Ti, Zr and W are lo...

Due to the increasing demand for energy storage systems, especially in the context of the expansion of electromobility, the recycling of lithium-ion batteries is moving into the focus of industry and research. One recycling approach uses the pyrometallurgical smelting process as a splitting operation of the more noble metals Cu, Ni and Co from the...

This work is dealing with the fuming and reduction of a copper slag from secondary copper smelter. It could be seen, that fuming with hydrogen is possible and the zinc content can be reduced to 0.7 wt.%. The recovery yields of zinc is around 90 %, copper at 64 % and lead at more than 94 %. Further information could be found in the proceedings.

KU Leuven and RWTH Aachen University are collaborating on the HARARE project to study the hydrogen reduction of molten copper slag. This presentation showcases KU Leuven's CFD simulation work aiming to understand the hydrogen conversion mechanism at the gas-slag interface, enabling control of selective reduction conditions for copper and iron. A mu...

Studying the segregation of Ta into Minerals by low cooling

Lithium-ion-battery (LIB) recycling through a combined pyro- and hydrometallurgical route is an appropriate method to process batteries with a wide range of cell chemistries and sizes. Copper, Co and Ni are already recovered on an industrial scale by this process route, whereas Li is not. Lithium, Al and Mn are transferred into Ca- and Si-rich slag...

Waste to Product

The transition to a circular economy demands a significant advancement in recycling technology performance, considering four key dimensions: products, processes, socio-economics, and the environmental footprint. As a research institute, our focus lies primarily on recycled products within the context of the circular economy. As an integral componen...

The future challenge for copper smelters is to increase metal yield by reducing copper losses and valorizing the slag as a marketable by-product. This can be achieved through further slag cleaning in a conventional submerged arc furnace (SAF) where remaining metallic oxides are reduced, and metal droplets have more settling time. Nevertheless, a si...

The results obtained from the work on a concept of a recycling process for NdFeB magnets to recover rare earth elements for remanufacturing similar magnets are presented. This paper investigates the viability of extracting rare earth metals from magnet recycling-derived oxide (MRDO) by means of molten salt electrolysis. The MRDO was produced from s...

Food spoilage is an ongoing global issue that contributes to rising carbon dioxide emissions and increased demand for food processing. This work developed anti-bacterial coatings utilising inkjet printing of silver nano-inks onto food-grade polymer packaging, with the potential to enhance food safety and reduce food spoilage. Silver nano-inks were...

The market dynamics, and their impact on a future circular economy for lithium-ion batteries (LIB), are presented in this roadmap, with safety as an integral consideration throughout the life cycle. At the point of end-of-life, there is a range of potential options – remanufacturing, reuse and recycling. Diagnostics play a significant role in evalu...

This presentation shows action of IME in HARARE project regarding molten state injection for copper reduction. Also insights a safety concept for 300 kg slag treatment are shown. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 958307.

ScandiumScandium is a soft silvery metal, with an atomic number of 21 it is the lightest of the transition metals. The melting pointMelting point is 1.541 °C, the boiling pointBoiling point is 2.836 °C and with a density of 2.985 g/cm3 is slightly heavier than AluminiumAluminium. ScandiumScandium is actually not rare—it is more abundant than precio...

Presence of non-metallic inclusionsNon-metallic inclusions (NMIs) reducesReduce surface quality and mechanical propertiesMechanical properties of aluminumAluminum products. The development of good NMIs removal practices relies on the understanding of inclusionInclusions behaviors with respect to separationSeparation and agglomerationAgglomeration p...

Advancements in technologies related to the electrorefining and electrodeposition of metals—as important manufacturing process steps—continue to receive significant attention [...]

Manganese plays a central role in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) but its recycling is rarely addressed when compared to other valuable metals present in LIBs, such as Co and Ni. Thus, the main goal of this work was to study and achieve the separation of Mn from Co and Ni by solvent extraction from a leachate obtained from LIBs using hydrochloric acid...

Due to its outstanding properties and wide range of applications, high-purity to ultra-high-purity aluminum represents a strategic material for meeting the future challenges of the 21st century. The purification of aluminum towards higher purity levels is usually performed via a combination of three-layer electrolytic refining and fractional crysta...

The extensive energy consumption of primary aluminum production stimulates increasing need of producing primary-quality alloys with secondary sources, during which process amount of non-metallic inclusions (NMIs) in the alloy must be strictly controlled. In the present study funded by AMAP Open Innovation Research Cluster, NMIs generated during rem...

The increasing production of neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets for technological applications results in disposal problems. NdFeB magnets contain a significant quantity of rare earth elements (REEs). China is the largest REEs producer, but it applies quotas and increases the export prices of REEs. To address this issue, this study aims at invest...

Vorwort Nur noch sieben Jahre bis 2030, dem Jahr, in dem wichtige Meilensteine der EU- und der deutschen Klimapolitik sowie vieler Industrieunternehmen auf dem Weg zu einer „net-zero“- Betriebsweise erreicht sein sollen! In dieser Zeit müssen die Konzepte entwickelt und zumindest großtechnisch erprobt werden, die uns dann im Zeitfenster 2045-2050 w...

Lithium is an essential component of current and future battery systems. The recycling of this element is therefore of high importance alongside the other valuable materials of a battery. However, lithium is not currently recovered from batteries in Europe. This can be attributed to economic factors on the one hand and to its properties such as its...

The increasing demand for ultra-high purity aluminum for technological applications has led to the improvement of refining methods in recent decades. To achieve ultra-purity levels (>5N), the common industrial way is to firstly purify aluminum from 2N8 up to 4N8 via three-layer electrolysis, followed by fractional crystallization (usually zone melt...

Electric waste from numerous devices that are put out of use every day has some form of printed circuit board that contains precious and valuable metals in their components. In order to extract these metals, the printed circuit boards were crushed and pyrolyzed into powder. The fine pyrolyzed printed circuit board (PPCB) powder was separated into f...

This work is about the hydrogen reduction of molten copper slag after the pyrometallurgical cleaning process. Thermochemical equilibriums were calculated with FactSageTM to investigate the slag, metal and gas phases with different hydrogen additions and concentrations. Afterwards, experiments were done to determine the selectivity of the reductions...

For current research projects are briefly introduced, all related to high performance materials recycling as final option in the circular economy strategy of Europe. Topics adressed are grahite from Li-Ion batteries, Titanium from machining turnings, RareEarth slements from magnets as well as PGM (platinum group metals) from end of life hydrogen el...

NdFeB magnets are employed in various technological applications due to their outstanding magnetic properties, such as high maximum energy product, high remanence and high coercivity. Production of NdFeB has gathered more interest, therefore the demand for rare earth elements (REEs) has continuously increased. The recovery of REEs has become essent...

The optimization of lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) recycling is crucial not only from a waste management perspective but also to decrease the dependence on imports of critical raw materials. In addition, the diversification of the recycling technologies is very important for better flexibility of the market. This study aims at investigating the recov...

The development of new multicomponent nanoparticles is gaining increasing importance due to their specific functional properties, i.e., synthesised new complex concentrated nanoparticles (CCNPs) in the form of powder using ultrasonic spray pyrolysis (USP) and lyophilisation from the initial cast Ag20Pd20Pt20Cu20Ni20 alloy, which was in the function...

In the molten salt electrolysis, neodymium and praseodymium in their oxidic forms are fed into fused salt, the electrolyte, to be reduced by applying current to the system and be deposited as metal. The electrolyte consists of neodymium fluoride, praseodymium fluoride and lithium fluoride. An issue that makes long-term electrolysis impracticable is...

Bauxite residue (BR) has in principle a great potential to be used in the construction industry considering its large availability. However, BR originating from the Bayer process lacks reactivity, i.e., hydraulic/pozzolanic activity in alkaline conditions, which is required in cementitious applications. Therefore, BR is commonly heat treated throug...

With the increasing amount of waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and the growing complexity of the equipment, recycling is facing new challenges. Not only is it necessary to achieve the highest possible recycling efficiencies, but also to manage the material diversity of the waste. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) as central compone...

This paper proposes a pyrometallurgical recycling method for end-of-life NdFeB magnets by oxidizing them in air and subsequently smelting them. The smelting process enabled the recovery of rare earth elements (REEs), producing a new reach concentrate separating the iron as a metallic phase. From the products of smelting, the metallic phase showed a...

Utilization of synergetic effects of smelting spent catalytic converters and printed circuit boards. Lowering melting point, finding feasible smelting recipe through thermochemical simulation, creating a CuFeSi collector phase for recovery of precious metals, such as platinum, palladium and rhodium.

Magnesium-based materials with exceptional properties are being widely used in the automotive and aerospace industries, as well as in electronic equipment and Mg-based implants. The development of many advanced engineering structures and precision devices prompts the demand for high-purity Mg with better performance and service. However, the curren...

Due to their remarkable magnetic properties, such as a high maximum energy product, high remanence, and high coercivity, NdFeB magnets are used in a variety of technological applications. Because of their very limited recycling, high numbers of spent NdFeB magnets are widely available in the market. In addition to China’s monopoly on the supply of...

Process Flow Alternatives for LIB Recycling

Ultra-high-purity magnesium has gained importance in the electronics and biomedical technological fields positioning it as one of the most valuable pure metals in the market. Due to its high reactivity and unique physical properties, vacuum distillation is the process of choice for its purification. Recently, liquid condensation techniques have imp...

To enable a long-term presence of humans in space, it is essential to use extraterrestrial raw materials to reduce the need for transporting resources or produced materials from Earth. In recent years, a lot of research has been conducted on different ISRU processes, such as regolith excavation, mineral processing and the extraction of oxygen using...