On the occasion of highlighting the innovative research of the SOCRATES project, one of our ESRs, Marianna, was put in the spotlight at the University of Leicester. Her research was highlighted in the postgraduate research magazine ‘Frontier’. In a short article, she comments about the essential development of novel extraction methods for critical metals. “Europe faces a serious challenge in supplying the demand of critical metals,” she says, “but within the industrial residues, a wide variety of critical and economically important critical and precious metals are present.”
The research of Ioanna Maria – Marianna – consists of further developing Ionometallurgy, an alternative approach which uses ionic liquids or deep eutectic solvents to realize the metal extraction. “Deep eutectic solvents consist of eutectic mixtures of quaternary ammonium salts and hydrogen bond-donors, such as amides. The two components prior to mixture exhibit high melting points, which decrease drastically after their combination. These solvents exhibit a “green” behaviour, as they are non-flammable and not toxic, with low vapour pressure, thermal and chemical stability, biodegradability and in addition, their production process is cheap and very straightforward.”
The main focus of Marianna’s research is to find out if and how we use these green solvents to extract critical metals from industrial residues.
Read the full article about Marianna her research here or view the screenshot below.
The FRONTIER Issue 5 2019 can be downloaded here.
