For over 30 years, Fraunhofer IKTS has demonstrated the potential of ceramic materials in a wide range of applications, including energy storage and wastewater treatment. As a research and technology service provider, IKTS provides sophisticated ceramic materials and components, as well as customised industrial manufacturing processes. The emphasis is on sustainable resource utilization and closed material cycles. IKTS develops recycling technologies that allow for the profitable recovery of valuable materials from primary and secondary resources. The institute runs a number of pilot plants at its Freiberg location, including monitoring systems and database solutions.
Fraunhofer IKTS will scale-up (TRL5) the technologies which allow not only the recovery of the main metals contained in the NdFeB magnets but the individual separation for upcycling applications. Evaluation of the impurities in each intermediate and final product will be performed to determine its limitation to be used in the different four use cases. Furthermore, Fraunhofer IKTS will support the full scale up (TRL6) implementation in IDENER facilities as well as monitoring integration.
Fraunhofer IKTS will mainly focus on precipitation and complexation technologies for individual metal separation. Membrane approaches will be also implemented to provide an integrated recycling process including wastewater treatment as well as chemicals recovery.
