Lecture: Kritieke metalen voor de transitie naar een koolstofarme economie

In the context of Artefact 2018: This Rare Earth - Stories from Below Prof. dr. Koen Binnemans will be giving a lecture in the series Lessen voor de XXIste eeuw about the importance of critical metals for the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Our society is transitioning from the use of fossil fuels to the use of renewable energy sources. This change implies both electricity production as well as its use, for instance in mobility (electric cars, bikes, etc.). The transition to a low-carbon society presents us with great challenges such as the development of efficient wind turbines, solar cells, electric motors and batteries. One often forgets however that these clean-tech applications require advanced materials that contain many different rare earth elements. Examples are neodymium and dysprosium for strong permanent magnets for electric motors and wind turbines, indium, gallium and germanium for solar cells, and cobalt for lithium-ion batteries. Many of these metals are considered ‘critical’, as their supply within Europe is not guaranteed. Often times they come from conflict areas (cobalt from DR Congo) or countries holding a production monopoly (rare earths from China). As the transition to a low-carbon economy will surely boost the demand for critical metals, new supply sources of these metals are needed, and the importance of recycling will become more prominent.