RIC is glad to support the ERASMUS+ project “EdUp”, coordinated by TU Bergakademie Freiberg, that aims at providing digital course contents and curricula upscaling opportunities for Ukrainian universities during the currently challenging period.
With EdUp, we will increase the already existing support activities that allow Ukrainian HEIs to keep up their study programmes by incorporating digital courses from partners and integrating them into their teaching. The project will offer a digital platform with new courses that cover already identified needs and increase the opportunities for UA partners to create digital courses. Within this project, RIC / Montanuniversität Leoben will provide a selection of education courses during the next two years.
We are excited that EIT RawMaterials selected our project proposal “PRO-SLO” for funding! The aim of the winter school project “PRO-SLO – building PROfessional SLO Competence” is to bridge the gap between Raw Materials operations and economic, social and ethical discourse, and will provide the raw materials industry with future leaders who are competent and confident to master the complex processes of obtaining and maintaining a Social Licence to Operate (SLO) for their raw materials projects. We are very proud to coordinate a highly motivated expert consortium and look forward to collaborating over the coming three years and beyond!
Hydrogen is inevitably linked to carbon as a valuable material in to the research activities in the field of methane pyrolysis. About 120 scientists from 23 different organizational units of the Montanuniversität Leoben are currently working on topics within the Strategic Core Research Area (SCoRe A+ Hydrogen and Carbon). Networking of individual scientists from different disciplines creates fruitful collaborations. The recent H2C – Symposium gathered a wide audience to learn from 20 PhD candidates working on sustainable energy projects.
More info here.
Moreover, the RIC Leoben team co-organized, together with EURECA-PRO, a high-level Hydrogen and Carbon Summit to take place in Chania/Crete on 26 September 202
Peter Moser, who has initiated the Resources innovation Center Leoben (RIC) eight years ago, will start his new position as rector of Montanuniversität Leoben on 1 October 2023.
We are very proud and thankful to have had him positioning and supporting RIC Leoben and our EIT Raw Materials activities at a strategic level in many consortia and decision bodies.
Helmut Antrekowitsch, the new Vice-Rector for Research and Sustainability will then also take over as the new leader of RIC Leoben, a great development!
18 – 20 October 2023 in Dubrovnik/Croatia
do you want to learn about the latest trends in mechanical hard rock excavation?
Then come to join us in Dubrovnik in October! The RIC team managed to invite
experts from SANDVIK and EPIROC who will present their latest technology!
There will also be machines for use at extremely low mining heights from DOK-ING, innovative blasting methods, as well as insights into research projects around mining with robots and microorganisms.
Get more details and apply here: https://dim-esee.eu/
Austrian Climate Day 2023 in Leoben
The Resources Innovation Center of the Montanuniversität Leoben organizes together with the CCCA the 23rd Austrian Climate Day at the Montanuniversität from April 11 – 13, 2023.
Mineral extraction is crucial to Europe’s twin digital and green transition. It is essential that these minerals are not extracted at the expense of the environment and people. In order to have a truly green transition, we also need sustainable management in the extractive sector: Minimising the environmental footprint of an extraction project while at the same time contributing to a local and societal license to operate. This transition to sustainable management is challenging, both for policy and industry.
The SUMEX Massive Open Online Course will address five key challenges that industry and policy face in this transition. The course makes use of scientific concepts and holistic sustainability concepts at the operational level and will outline potential solutions based on practical examples applicable across Europe.
What is in it for you?
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to…
Who is the course for?
This course is designed for leaders, managers and stakeholders in the mineral extractive industry who want to learn about the challenges, solutions and new developments in sustainability.
It will be especially useful for public administrators and industry practitioners wishing to understand and implement sustainability management at any stage of the mining life cycle, from exploration to post-closure.
This course also benefits those interested in the importance of raw materials for a sustainable future and the challenges connected to them!
On 23 September 2022, the RIC Leoben team had the pleasure to represent EIT RawMaterials at the EIT OpenDay in Vienna, together with EIT Manufacturing, EIT Health, EIT UrbanMobility and EIT Culture&Creativity.
Every speaker confirmed that the major strength of EIT is collaboration within a large professional network, something that we at RIC Leoben and EIT RawMaterials have been supporting since 2015!
on 23 September 2022 in Vienna
Did you know that the @European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) is the largest innovation ecosystem in Europe with more than 2,000 participating actors? Pretty impressive!
All EIT Innovation Communities follow a pan-European approach to connect business, education and research while also ensuring close collaboration with the local industry ecosystems!
And we are also near you in #Austria and #Slovakia! Join us in Vienna on 23. September for the EIT Open Day Austria & Slovakia and become part of our network!
Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/eit-open-day-austria-and-slovakia-tickets-385617972737
@EIT Manufacturing @EIT RawMaterials, @EIT Health, @EIT Urban Mobility, and @EIT Culture and Creativity
Separation of small-size mixed plastic fractions and processing into high-quality material
Duration: 10/2022 – 09/2024
The Resources Innovation Center is happy to announce a newcomer among its Climate Actions projects!
ReFibreValue is a FFG-funded cooperation project between Montanuniversität Leoben, the international technology group ANDRITZ and technology start-up Circulyzer GmbH is successfully approaching the first year of activities. As a manufacturing by-product, Andritz AG generates significant amounts of textile production waste in form of polyamides (PA) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) which cannot be separated in an economically and ecologically sensible way using the processes currently available. One possible separation technology is offered by Circulyzer GmbH. The ReFibreValue project aims to develop and optimise a separation process that would produce partial fractions that are as pure as possible. ReFibreValue thanks to the collaboration among the industrial partners and MUL’s RIC, the chairs of Polymer Processing (KV), Materials Science and Testing of Polymers (WPK), Waste Recycling Technology and Waste Management (AVAW), Processing and Refinement (AuV) is enabling the processing of valuable waste and its return to the material cycle, making a valuable contribution to European circular economy agenda.
The project aims to achieve sustainability and climate protection and contributes to SDG13 climate protection measures, SDG12 ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns and, SDG9 industry, innovation and infrastructure and subordinately the research project also contributes to SDG8 (increase in resource efficiency). RIC assumes the role of project management, communication, networking and further development for future funding within the consortia.
Discover more on the podcast & video here
On 20 April 2022, Federal Minister Elisabeth Köstinger visited the research facilities of the Montanuniversität Leoben that are working on pyrolysis for the production of hydrogen. These activities are located in the “Resources Innovation Center” (RIC Leoben), to which Minister Köstinger promised funding of three million Euros, divided between the years 2022 – 2028. The focal points of the funding agreement are activities on the following areas:
The Resources Innovation Center Leoben will work on research topics (dissertations) on these themes, involving research funding from Austrian, European and global funding programmes (FFG, Horizon Europe, EIT RawMaterials). “Crisis security requires raw materials. Not all raw materials are infinitely available everywhere, which is why the Resources Innovation Center (RIC) at the Montanuniversität Leoben is an important institution that we are supporting in its work with three million Euros. Research is already being carried out here to find scientific answers to future challenges in the form of innovations,” said Elisabeth Köstinger.
We are proud to have published numerous papers in th current Berg- und Hüttenmännische Monatshefte. They are mostly published in both german and english, all current papers can be found here as mostly open access.
The BHM is the only Austrian journal for the entire mining and metallurgy sector. It is divided thematically. The issues with even numbers mainly report on the extraction of solid mineral raw materials in the form of original articles, whereby the authors come from both the practice-oriented industrial sector and the university research sector. The odd-numbered issues are dedicated to the metallurgical sector. It covers both the extraction of metals, including recycling, as well as further processing and metallurgy, and the refractory industry. Environmental issues and sustainability occupy a large space. The sections “Montan-Rundschau” and “Aus der Industrie” provide brief, concise information on current economic events in the industry and introduce new products and processes.
Montanuniversität Leoben as part of the TU Austria-Universities was responsable for on of the breakoutsession for European Forum Alpach. The topaic was “Plastics? Sustainable!”
Plastics are essential in our daily life, yet their image is very negative. In fact, the majority of plastics are used in valuable products e.g. in medicine, mobility, infrastructure or energy transmission and thus contribute to many SDGs. This BOS deals with various aspects of plastic, including their environmental relevance and usage behaviour. How plastics fit into the Circular Economy Approach will be discussed and ideas on the sustainability increase of plastic products will be presented.
ENG | BS 7: Plastics? Sustainable! from AITtomorrow2day on Vimeo.
Find out more about the ALPBACH TECHNOLOGY SYMPOSIUM 2021 at https://www.ait.ac.at/en/news-events/alpbach-technology-symposium-2021
At this year’s online Green Tech Jam, the solution of the challenge “Circular Economy meets Distributed Ledger – a transparent PET bottle product cycle” set by the Montanuniversität Leoben (involved institutes: Resources Innovation Center & Industrial Logistics), which was developed by an interdisciplinary team of students, won the first place. The team “sixpack” was supervised by the Chair of Industrial Logistics during the 24-hour challenge and consisted of three Slovenian students from Graz University of Technology as well as three Montan students. They were able to prevail against 7 other teams, each of which worked on one of 6 different challenges provided by the companies t-matix, BDI, Komptech and AI.engineer as well as the Climate and Energy Fund, and us.
In the Android app developed by the team “sixpack”, QR codes attached to bottles can be scanned and information about the bottles retrieved from the distributed data storage. The path of the bottle – from PET production to the supermarket – is displayed graphically on a map and unconventional energy comparisons with more or less everyday activities (e.g. the duration of headbanging during a concert) are carried out and visualised.
At the interdisciplinary Hackathon under the slogan “Code & Concept for a greener future” organised by the Green Tech Cluster Austria together with the Climate Change Center Austria (CCCA) and Graz University of Technology,8 teams of students from different disciplines and different european universities had around 24 hours to work on a problem relating to the topics of climate and the environment and to present a digital solution for it. In total 36 international students participated at this event. The MUL challenge also competed as part of one of two Climathon challenges at the Green Tech Jam. Climathon is a global climate hackathon under the umbrella of EIT Climate-KIC.
More information about the whole event can be found at https://www.greentech.at/nachlese-green-tech-jam/
The game of “The Briefcase of mineral applications” aims to familiarise the player with the minerals that are used in the manufacture of everyday objects. The specific target audience are primary and secondary schools which include from 6 to 18-year-old students and their teachers. The project is orientated for Wider Society Learning (WSL) and aims to raise students’ knowledge of mining activities and mineral applications. Given the era of a growing prevalence of online teaching and learning, we believe tools such as this one will prove to be effective and beneficial for the education of young people by using both their native and the English language.
Try it our here: https://www.thebriefcasegame.eu/home
This brochure has been created in the framework of the project InvestRawMaterials – Multifactor model for investments in the raw materialsector, case study Bosnia and Herzegovina, funded by European Instituteof Innovation and Technology (EIT) under the KIC Raw Materials program. In this brochure, we present you the outcome of the devoted work of theentire project consortium from 2017 to 2019. Here you will be able tofind the summary of the most relevant economic and legal data pertaining to Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as geological data on 14 carefullyselected antimony, bauxite, fluorite and magnesite deposits. We hopethis brochure will find its way to interested parties and fulfill its purposeas a guide to the investors in this prospective, but insufficiently investigated area.
Peter Moser (Vice-rector of Montanuniversität Leoben was invited to the European Raw Materials Alliance kickoff meeting to give the commitee members a perspective from a research point of view:
“The European Raw Materials Alliance (ERMA) is the first action of the Critical Raw Materials Action Plan of the European Commission. Research and development can play a vital role in the implementation of this by developing the necessary knowledge and theoretical frameworks that the approaches are based on, such as we have done in the past, like design of value chains, material efficiency of final products, etc. This initiative is highly appreciated and needed, however, systemically it is clear that in the future this alliance must expand its scope beyond building resilience for only value chains of specific materials. Society is undergoing a massive transformation currently, a transformation that needs to be successful for future generations to be able to meet their needs and live in favourable ecological conditions. This means that we cannot tackle challenges in our old conventional ways but that we need to transform our systems. Innovative technologies and change of human behaviour are the basis for meeting the ambitious climate targets of the Green Deal and the implementation of the sustainable development goals. In the following I will address the necessary research and development needs as a pre-requisite for this transformation because the kind of challenges we are facing are entirely new and we need new flexible and systemic ways to react to them. On the one hand, we need to create the knowledge basis for innovative technologies, alternative societal systems and responsible human behaviour. On the other hand, we also need to address the transformative needs of the R&D system itself to be fit for tackling these societal challenges effectively. Successful R&D in this context grows in a suitable biotope that we have to form – a biotope that attracts the most talented and creative researchers and provides them with a working environment where enthusiasm and inspiration is promoted, and stronger than the frustration from the frequent lack of R&D resources and bureaucracy.
In a nutshell:
In terms of people it is necessary that education and research work closely and in synergy so that our long-term human capacity needs are met. In terms of funding it is essential to provide stable and long-term funding frameworks to promote effective and visionary R&D environments. In terms of simplicity and low bureaucracy it is important to rethink how funding frameworks work. It is crucial to have uniform, simple and aligned rules across different frameworks.
The three ingredients for creating a suitable R&D biotope itself are:
In such type of new approaches and systems we have to implement much more the idea of short-term path finder projects, which upon success are followed by long term initiatives. A good first example in this direction is the European University initiative where a three-year starting period is followed by a long-term period of 10plus years of fixed financing, an approach that really promotes depth and excellence.
In conclusion, the societal transformation can be achieved on the basis of
Sustainable Carbon Supply and Energy Mining based on Methane decomposition is seen as a major contribution to a future carbon footprint reduction while maintaining a sustainable supply with raw materials and green energy. Natural gas is the fossil fuel containing the least impurities with an estimated global resource of around 800 trillion m³. Although the composition of natural gas can vary to some extent, its primary component is methane, CH4. By endothermic decomposition (methane pyrolysis) methane can be split into its components carbon and hydrogen (H2) where especially hydrogen is of interest as a future alternative for various industrial applications. Additionally, there is a high potential for various large-scale applications of carbon, especially in construction and agriculture, if the carbon is available at a lower price than from presently available resources.
We proudly present our new teaser video for RM@Schools. RM@Schools is a Wider Society Learning project funded by the EIT, focused on an innovative program to make science education and careers in RM attractive for youngsters. An active learning approach will be proposed to schools through RM Ambassadors by involving students in experiments with RM-related hands-on and digital educational toolkits, in excursions to industries, and in science dissemination activities. Apply here
The EnAct-SDGs project aims to create a dynamic network of universities, research institutes, industry and professionals to develop a roadmap to a modernised education. The project aims to promote innovation and new skills for sustainable development among the East and Southeast Europe (ESEE) university graduates and raw materials professionals.
The EnAct-SDGs project is looking for stakeholders from the Raw Materials Knowledge Triangle, primarily from the RIS eligible countries, that would like to join the EnAct-SDGs network and actively participate in the project’s activities.
Find the Call here: EnAct-SDGs website