DESignSX
Project Description
Sustainable metallurgy stands uniquely poised to reduce the environmental impact of existing processes whilst recovering the metal value in end-of-life devices, thereby closing the resource loop. Despite their growing demand and geopolitical criticality, lanthanide separation remains technologically challenging due to the small monotonic variation in their properties, negatively affecting the economics of their recycling. In this context, the ERC-funded DESignSX project will use non-ionic hydrophobic eutectic solvents (DES) for lanthanide separation through solvent extraction (SX).
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The project endeavors to enhance lanthanide separation by augmenting steric factors that dictate the interactions between lanthanide ions and ligands, achieved by incorporating complexing agents as constituents of DES. Given that the separation of adjacent lanthanide cations occurs over dozens of counter-current extraction stages, even seemingly small increases in the separation factors yield measurable environmental and economic gains. DESignSX relies on a tandem experimental-computational approach spanning multiple time and size scales, from a molecular description of pair-wise interactions to laboratory-scale process optimisation. DESignSX aims to overcome the traditional SX issues of complex flowsheets, third-phase formation, toxicity of the organic diluent through the inclusion of bio-derived components, and entrainment losses, whilst improving the selectivity of the separation. DESignSX outcomes are expected to be transferable to other critical SX separations.
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Latest News
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08/04/2025 - Our latest publication in ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering presents our opinion as to the pitfalls to avoid when characterizing natural deep eutectic solvents as "green" or "sustainable.
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31/03/2025 - Welcome to Karen Torrez, a MSc student from Universidad de Antofagasta (Chile). Karen will investigate the development of synergistic deep eutectic solvents to be used as organic phase in solvent extraction for the recovery of platinum group metals. Pleasure to have you in Aveiro!
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25/03/2025 - Publication in Green Chemistry reviews the potential advantages and limitations of type V eutectic solvents for liquid-liquid separation applications. The work is a result of an international collaboration between the University of Aveiro and Institut de Chimie Séparative de Marcoule (France), University of Santiago de Chile (Chile), and Tokushima University (Japan), thank you to all the contributors.
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17/03/2025 - Publication in collaboration with Dr Sandrine Dourdain and Dr Guilhem Arrachart of the Institut de Chimie Séparative de Marcoule (France) is available in the Journal of Molecular Liquids. Special congratulations to Baptiste Bernicot for carrying out the work and very thankful for the opportunity to work together.
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03/03/2025 - Nicolas gave an invited lecture at MATSUS Spring 2025 in Seville (Spain) as part of the Sustainable energy materials and circularity symposium entitled "A walk down the waste hierarchy pyramid for lithium-ion batteries". Thank you to the organizers for the opportunity to share our work.
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19-20/02/2025 - Participation at the Annual Meeting of the DECHEMA/VDI Group Extraction 2025 in Aachen (Germany). Nicolas presented the group´s work on "Evaluating the potential of hydrophobic eutectic solvents for inter-lanthanide separation".
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15/02/2025 - A huge congratulations to Henrique Bastos who successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "Recovery of Critical Metals from Secondary Waste using Hydroxylated Systems". We wish Henrique all the best in his future endeavors and a big hug from the group always!