Last week the global association for rare-earth industry stakeholders, was officially erected. SIM² KU Leuven is happy to have contributed to this milestone for the global rare earth community and will continue to support “REIA”.

The EU Research Executive Agency selected DEMETER as the Marie Skłodowska Curie project to be featured in the REA 10th anniversary video. Gwen Bailey explains the importance of the DEMETER research for clean mobility in the EU.

Rare-earths permanent magnets were treated with solvometallurgical solutions of Br2 in organic solvents to remove the Ni-Cu-Ni coating prior to direct recycling. A comparison with 2 M HNO3 treatment proved the advantages of the solvometallurgical process.

Electrodeposition of rare earth element-transition metal (REE-TM) from non-aqueous solution is a promising alternative to high-temperature molten-salt electrolysis.

On February 5-7, 2019, the DEMETER Concluding Symposium took place in Leuven. Around 70 experts from 38 organisations and 11 countries participated in the debate about the future of Electric Vehicles and the role of rare-earth permanent magnet phases and motors.

Gwen Bailey, ESR 15 in EU MSCA-ETN DEMETER, was selected as the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Association Fellow of the Week. Gwen will feature in the panel debate “Are REEs still critical?” in the DEMETER Symposium (February 2019).

On 12-11-2018, NEMO, CROCODILE and DEMETER were presented at the 2nd annual Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) event, which was co-organised by the European Commission and the H2020 project SCRREEN during the Raw Materials Week.

Following their milestone achievements on rare earth (RE) high-performance magnets, Prof. Gutfleisch et al. (TU Darmstadt) published a landmark paper on the vision and reality of heavy RE-free, free RE and RE-free magnets.

Gwendolyn Bailey, Early Stage Researcher (ESR) at KU Leuven in the EU MSCA-ETN DEMETER project, consistently endeavours to communicate science to a broad audience. She has now won the 2018 MSCA award for science dissemination.

In a new DEMETER Policy Brief, Gwendolyn Bailey and Karel Van Acker (KU Leuven) motivate why the time has come for the electric-vehicle industry (EV industry) to start working together with the producers of rare earths (REEs).