Additive manufacturing and new composite materials offer great potential. However, they often make material systems very complex, which is a challenge for recycling the contained valuable materials. This was one of the topics the Fraunhofer Project Group for Materials Recycling and Resource Strategies IWKS brought to discussion at the International Conference on Material Innovation MatX. At the booth, the scientists from the departments Urban Mining and Magnetic Materials demonstrated how new materials can be recovered from old ones.

“Already today, recycling needs to be a must, not an option,“ said Dr. Gert Homm in his lecture “Exploitation of Alternative Resources by Urban Mining“. “We already use nearly twice as much resources as our earth could sustainably offer. Urban Mining can support here by looking into a further usage of products and raw materials made by men. This means, humans are not only consumers, but also producers,“ continued Homm. “Despite the complexity of new, urban materials, it pays off to look into this as the concentration of the contained valuable materials is often many times higher than that of natural resources,“ explained Homm.

In his lecture, Karsten Rachut, scientist in the department Magnetic Materials of the Project Group, presented different options for recycling high-performance permanent magnets. The mining of the contained rare-earth and valuable materials is a very costly and time-consuming process. Their recovery and re-introduction in the circular economy does not only improve efficiency, but also protects the environment.

For more information on innovative processes that are part of the research at the Fraunhofer Project Group IWKS, please watch our video.