Research projects

The primary production of metals is usually accompanied by by-product residues. These residue streams are a potential problem due to environmental concerns. Contained in these residues are valuable metals in lower grades than the primary production source.  The IME is seeking means to exploit these vast secondary resources for value reclamation through development of innovative processes.
The focus areas include and are not limited to the following: slag cleaning for recovery of precious metals, landfill mining to recover metals and plastics, red mud processing for recovery of high value metals such as Sc and Ga. Inertization of slags is another large research focus. Metallurgical slags can be modified so that they may be used e.g. as cement additives or as road building materials. This "zero-waste" approach contributes enormously to a sustainable metal production, which is actively propagated by IME in R&D projects and teaching.
The processing of these materials at IME is predominantly undertaken by pyrometallurgical means. The facilities at IME for processing of the aforementioned resources comprise laboratory scale and demonstration scale furnaces and converters. Activities within IME in this area include thermochemical process modelling, high temperature experiments to validate the theoretical basis.