From batteries for hybrid cars to fibre optics, computers and smartphones, everything works thanks to the use of rare earth metals, a class of chemical elements used in electronic devices, electric vehicles, wind turbines and much more, whose extraction from minerals requires an expensive and polluting process. The ability to source them more cheaply than at present and with less impact on the environment is a crucial challenge for Europe, which is largely dependent on imports of these materials. This is particularly significant from the standpoint of the ecological transition. This challenge has been embraced by a group of young researchers from the University of Milan-Bicocca. The developed system uses two types of waste: thanks to nanotechnology, rare earth metals are ‘extracted’ from disused electronic devices using a device made of porous material from chemical and steel industry waste.
The RARE project took part in the fifth Bicocca Università del Crowdfunding call, the university’s alternative finance programme that promotes the development of innovative projects and business ideas, and won the support of EIT RawMaterials, a European consortium dealing with non-fossil raw materials to support the energy transition, which has been a partner of #BiUniCrowd since this year. Fundraising starts today on Produzioni dal Basso, Italy’s first crowdfunding and social innovation platform. This is the first of three campaigns planned for this edition of Bicocca Università del Crowdfunding. RARE will have sixty days to raise €5,000, but once the 50% target has been reached, the partner company’s contribution will be triggered to cover the remainder.
The RARE team (download photos) consists of Lorenzo Viganò and Daniele Montini, PhD students in Materials Science and Nanotechnology, and benefits from the experience, both in application and dissemination, of Barbara Di Credico, associate professor of chemical fundamentals of technologies in the Materials Science department. Communication is handled by Jessica Bosisio, a PhD student in Economics and Management of Innovation and Sustainability at the University of Parma. In recent weeks, the researchers have taken part in team-building activities that Bicocca Università del Crowdfunding is carrying out in collaboration with the Street Is Culture association. This has also resulted in a jingle (click here to listen to it) that will accompany the fundraising campaign.
“Currently,” the team members explain, “the components of electronic devices are only minimally reused. Materials such as copper, aluminium and iron are recycled, but few manage to recycle rare earth metals. Recovering industrial waste to create new raw materials suitable for capturing these chemical elements would reduce the costs involved in other recovery methods. This also promotes the idea of a circular economy where waste is not disposed of, but given a second life. We want to develop a sustainable and environmentally friendly device that can recover rare earth metals from electronic waste. Through specific treatments of this waste, rare earth metal ions can be transferred into water and subsequently captured by our device. Further processing will make it possible to recover rare earth metals and, ideally, make them reusable for the production of new electronic devices and technologies.”
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine,” notes Fabio Pegorin, Business Development Manager at EIT RawMaterials, “has further highlighted the importance for the European Union to be able to strengthen local supply chains for a stable and sustainable supply of metals and minerals needed for the energy transition. It is therefore imperative not only to support projects that aim at the sustainable mining of these strategic materials, but also to incentivise new approaches and technologies such as those proposed by the RARE project that aim to extract them from products that contain them and have reached the end of their life, all from a circular economy perspective.”
You can also support the RARE project with a small contribution by connecting to the dedicated page on the Produzioni dal Basso platform. For each donation there is a reward according to the reward-based crowdfunding campaign system that has always been a feature of #BiUniCrowd.