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.
A guideline for engineers about earth limitations – 2021-2022
In 2009, former director of the Stockholm Resilience Center Johan Rockström led a group of 28 internationally renowned scientists to identify the nine processes that regulate the stability and resilience of the Earth system. The scientists proposed 9 quantitative planetary boundaries:
Crossing these boundaries increases the risk of generating large-scale abrupt or irreversible environmental changes. Since then the planetary boundaries framework has generated enormous interest within science, policy, and practice. Over the course of 10 lectures, international experts will introduce the audience to the concept of the 9 planetary boundaries within which humanity can continue to develop and thrive for generations to come.
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
The Climate-KIC The Journey Summer School is Europe’s largest climate innovation summer school for graduates and young professionals. The Journey is usually a 4-week full time programme. Participants visit 3 of the 25 locations involved around Europe, focused on climate action, innovation, systems transformation and community building.
This year “The Journey” was held online with a multi-channel setup and a hands-on toolkit provided to every participant.
As we finish our second week of this year’s “The Journey” we would like to say goodbye to our dear participants. We hope to welcome you in Leoben in person soon!
EnActSDG´s Summer school is a three days hands-on webinar on Innovation & Entrepreneurship for the Raw Materials industry. The programme is driven by the sustainability development goals and circular economy principles. Students will tackle on challenges proposed by the Industry to generate new business ideas and improve existing solutions; they will acquire new skills, learn to use new tools and develop a new mindset that will help building up their careers as innovation professionals.
The programme curriculum is provided by TU Freiberg, Montanuniversität Leoben, University of Trento and Hub Innovation Trentino, partners of ENACT project.
In this Pilot School students from TUKE, AGH and NTUA will participate as well as other students from the ESEE region.
We put a lot of effort into creating a booklet for our partners and for new interested parties. We wanted to distribute it this year but here we are with travel restrictions and lots of online meetings. Nevertheless you can view it online! Enjoy, All the best from the RIC Leoben Team
We are proud to see a publication in the International Mining magazine about our SafeDeepMining project. Visit http://www.safedeepmining.eu/ for course information and keep up the good work!
Within the project “EnActSDGs” we aim at enhancing the skills of students in order to achieve the sustainability goals in the raw materials sector in Austria and internationally – but especially in the ESEE regions (East and South East Europe). To achieve this goal, we need you and your opinion as an expert. Therefore we ask you to answer a short survey.
Of course, your data will be treated with the utmost confidentiality and evaluated anonymously.
Your opinion can be a significant contribution to an even higher quality education and thus to quality improvement for the entire raw materials sector. In addition, there is also the possibility of making the company more publicly effective as well as accessible to students, for example with lectures, internships, financed industrial projects or financed projects in basic research.
You can find more information on the EnAct-SDGs website. If you wish you can subscribe to the EnAct-SDGs newsletter to receive news and updates on the project and invitations to participate in our activities.
RIC Leoben successfully applied to join the Working Group when it was first established in 2018. This year marked the beginning of the drafting of an ESEE Education Concept Note, which was finished in 2019. The document shows the groups vision about creating impact on the innovativeness of the ESEE region through the development of raw material related education. Subsequently, an ESEE Education Initiative was created and consolidated projects where planned and executed according to the ESEE Education Concept Note. The team work and networking accomplished through the participation of the Regional Center Leoben was very successful in terms of achievements within the Group’s objectives as well as generally. For example, new cooperation was established and successful project proposals submitted. In 2020 the Working Group was renewed and RIC Leoben successfully reapplied. We are looking forward to a prolonged fruitful cooperation.
On 3rd March 2020 a workshop on CO2-emission accounting took place at TU Graz. RIC Leoben participated in the workshop, which was part of a project developed within the Alliance for Sustainable Universities. The workshop offered insights to how the CO2-emission accounting tool ClimCalc works and provided a useful discussion forum on data collection for the university representatives.
On 6th March 2020 the 27th meeting of the Alliance of Sustainable Universities Austria took place at the WU Vienna. RIC Leoben was represented by Anna Meyer, responsible for the Alliance at MUL. She presented RIC’s recent activities and plans on the topic of sustainability at Montanuniversität Leoben. The meeting provided the frame for a lively exchange of ideas and initiatives from alliance members and a fruitful discussion about the universities’ responsibility and role as a pioneer in the sustainability agenda. A presentation of the Paris Lodron Universities’ Green WG Challenges (https://uni-salzburg.ac.at/index.php?id=209998), which provides students with challenges on the topic of living a sustainable live ended the meeting on a positive note.
How to increase Austria’s future perspectives through a new raw material strategy?
On 4th March 2020 the Working Group on Raw Materials, an association of Austrian NGOs, invited relevant stakeholders and the public to discuss the new raw materials strategy. Last year the Austrian government decided on the drafting of an “integrated Austrian raw materials strategy”. The present strategy is mainly based on the security of supply of the Austrian economy. However, the new and integrated strategy should include ecological and social aspects as well as use circular economy as a guiding framework. The planned renewal of the strategy will be done through a participative process, which is highly welcomed by the NGOs. To start the dialogue, the Group invited representatives from regions all over the world in order to hear their experiences concerning regional raw material exploitation and use as well as the connected consequences. The event ended with a discussion on the podium on the question of the next necessary political steps for a new integrated raw material strategy.