KU LEUVEN, BELGIUM

Knowledge institute

Contact

Peter Tom Jones
Department Materials Engineering KU Leuven
Kasteelpark Arenberg 44
3001 Leuven

E: Peter.jones@mtm.kuleuven.be
T: +32 486 83 64 94

Website: www.kuleuven.sim2.be

SUSTAINABLE INORGANIC MATERIALS MANAGEMENT

KU Leuven (founded in 1425) is the oldest and largest university in Belgium. It has a rich tradition of education and research, in all academic disciplines with a strong international orientation. KU Leuven ranked 5th in total EU FP7 funds awarded, after Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College and ETH Zürich. KU Leuven is one of the founding members of LERU (League of European Research Universities).

KU Leuven’s contribution to EURELCO is mainly performed through SIM² KU Leuven, a flagship Research Cluster at KU Leuven working on Sustainable Inorganic Materials Management, involving research groups from the Departments of Materials Engineering, Geology, Chemical Engineering, Building Materials, Chemistry, Economics, Psychology and Law. SIM²’s mission is to target zero-waste, environmental-friendly, cost-effective recovery/recycling approaches, covering the full value chain. The input streams for SIM² R&D are End-of-Life (critical) metal containing products, metal containing liquid waste streams and industrial residues, and landfilled material streams. Within SIM² there are four major research lines, all of which are relevant for EURELCO: i.e. base metal recovery; critical metal recovery; secondary resources for building materials; and policy research and LCA. Together with the colleagues from the Mechanics Dept. (thermal conversion technologies including GasPlasma). SIM² KU Leuven was one of the catalysts for the erection of both the Flemish and EU ELFM Consortia in resp. 2008 and 2014. KU Leuven has been involved in several nationally and EU funded ELFM projects.