A gift will boost recycling of critical raw materials

– Our goal is to develop new, automated methods for extracting critical raw materials from waste. This will make us more sustainable and less dependent on the countries that control these materials, says Nabil Belbachir, Research Director at NORCE and Head of the Competence Centre for Automated Extraction of Critical Raw Materials (CARM).

CARM has been awarded NOK 5 million from Sparebanken Norge to purchase an advanced X ray spectroscopy instrument that can identify critical raw materials in electronic waste.

– This is a major step in the development of automated solutions for recovering critical raw materials from waste, says Hege Indresand, Senior Researcher in Chemical Analysis at NORCE.

Today, sorting critical raw materials is often manual, time consuming, hazardous, and inefficient. Extracting such materials from a TV or computer by hand is laborious and unsustainable.

CARM aims to enable robots, artificial intelligence, and advanced sensors to perform the task efficiently, safely, and profitably. Being able to spot and point to elements of interest, the new X ray spectroscopy instrument is a key component.

– Using an X ray beam, the device can quickly identify and map the materials in waste, Indresand explains.

NORCE already has years of experience with X ray spectroscopy in the process industry, but the new instrument is easier to use, requires minimal sample preparation, and offers great flexibility in the types of samples it can analyse.

– The CARM Centre will offer a test lab where companies can try out sorting and recycling technologies. The University of Agder contributes expertise in mechatronics and batteries, while the Mechatronics Innovation Lab provides robotics and testing facilities. We are building a competence environment found nowhere else in Norway, and barely in Europe, says Belbachir.

He also leads the European research project iBot4CRMs, which develops robotic and automated solutions for recovering critical raw materials from waste.

– Our aim is to strengthen Europe’s resilience and reduce dependence on countries like the USA and China. The CARM Centre in Grimstad will play an important role in this, Belbachir says.

For Sør-fondet at Sparebanken Norge, the donation is among the largest so far this year.

– “We are happy to strengthen regional expertise and address major societal challenges. We look forward to seeing researchers and industry make use of the X ray spectroscopy instrument and see what kind of innovations the research can foster,” says Trond Skjæveland, Managing Director of Sør-fondet.