2019 SINReM
Summer School

The Summer School starts on Monday 10/09 at 9h00 in Novotel Leuven, 5′ walking distance from the railway station. Courses take place from 9h-12h30 and from 13h30 till 17h00 with a short break in the mornings and afternoon. On Wednesday 12/09, the summer school ends after lunch.

Multi-criteria assessment of Enhanced Landfill Mining Projects – An interdisciplinary training programme for ELFM projects – Karel Van Acker (KU Leuven), Steven Van Passel (University of Antwerp and Hasselt University) and Niclas Svensson (Linköping University).

Participants are invited to submit a poster about their research during a formal poster session organised on Monday evening, 10 September 2018. The posters will be on display during the whole duration of the summer school.

Industrial flowsheeting and thermo-economic assessment. Markus Reuter (HZDR).

A summer school dinner will be offered on Tuesday 11 September in the city center of Leuven.

From the lab to the market, business development & commercialisation. Christina Meskers (Umicore) & Tony Hand and Nicolas Menou (EIT Raw Materials).

We offer scholarships to a maximum of 15 selected students. The selection will take place based on motivation letter, track record and previous experiences. The scholarship includes the following:

• Tuition fee
• Catering during the summer school (coffee break in the morning and afternoon + sandwich lunch)
• One summer school dinner on Tuesday September 11 in the city centre of Leuven
• Summer school course materials
• Upon request: a private room in a university residence (check in 09/09, check out 12/09; towels and sheets are available)
• Upon request: reimbursement of travel expenses up to maximum EUR 300 ONLY upon presentation of original invoices

As such, selected students only need to cover breakfast and evening meals, personal expenses and any travel expenses higher than EUR 300.

The summer school takes place in Novotel Leuven (Vuurkruisenlaan 4, 3000 Leuven – Belgium), at walking distances (5′) from Leuven bus and railway station. The organisers do not accept responsibility for any personal injury or loss of property which may occur during the summer school.

Participants from the European Economic Area are expected to travel with their European Health Insurance Card (EHIC); participants from outside the EEA will be registered at the university (costs are covered). Those persons needing an official invitation letter in order to obtain a visa to attend the summer school may contact us specifying the necessary details. The letter of invitation does not financially obligate the summer school organisers in any way.

Leuven is only 15′ away by train from Brussels Airport. Participants are responsible to organise their own travel and accommodation*. We suggest these convenient hotels:

• Novotel (Summer school venue and 7 minute walk from Leuven Central Station): +3216939001 – [email protected]
• IBIS Budget Hotel (9′ walk from venue/Novotel and 2′ walk from Leuven station): +3216479880 – [email protected]
• Youth hostel ‘De Blauwput‘ (9′ walk from the venue/Novotel and 2’ walk from Leuven station): +3216 63 90 62 – [email protected].

* Selected students from SINReM can request a reimbursement of their travel expenses up to a maximum of EUR 300; selected students from SINReM can request a room in KU Leuven university guesthouse ‘De Vesten’ but need to foresee their own transport to the venue (about 3km).

More details about the logistics can be read here. More information about Leuven: www.visitleuven.be

On September 10-12, 2018, the Summer School “To mine or not to mine – A multi-criteria assessment of the landfill mining of municipal and industrial solid waste deposits” took place in Leuven, Belgium. The summer school was a joint initiative of the EU Horizon 2020 ETN NEW-MINE and ETN SOCRATES projects, in collaboration with the EIT RawMaterials IMAGINE programme. 43 MSc/PhD students and professionals of 23 different nationalities participated. Here we reflect on three days of interactive sessions, learning about multi-criteria assessment of landfill mining and resource recovery projects (LM, 11/10/2018)

Resource scarcity, climate change and increased pressure on environment and health necessitate the transition from a fossil-based, linear economy to a low-carbon, circular economy.  What was considered as waste in the past, becomes a resource for tomorrow. Increasing attention is given to the possibility of mining and/or reprocessing of municipal and industrial solid waste deposits (see ELFM-video April 2018). But is it really feasible to mine these secondary deposits? Do we have the appropriate technology? Is it economically feasible to do this? Does the mining of these deposits indeed contribute to a safer environment and health situation? Does it lead to a new CO₂ reductions? And do people want a mining project “in their backyard”?

The Summer School aimed at offering an integral approach for the assessment of landfill mining projects, going beyond technical assessment, offering an approach to determine the value of landfill mining from an economic, environmental, social, policy and business perspective. In three sessions, the participants were trained in different aspects of the assessment of ELFM projects.

Session 1 – “Multi-criteria assessment of Enhanced Landfill Mining Projects – An interdisciplinary training programme for ELFM projects”

This session was organised by the NEW-MINE project, focussing on municipal solid waste containing landfills and applying concepts being developed within the project by the PhD students In an introductory lecture, Karel Van Acker (KU Leuven, Belgium) introduced the requirement of a holistic approach to decide on a particular landfill management type.

For the assessment of landfill mining case-studies, three scenarios were introduced, being a (1) “do-nothing scenario”, i.e. no landfill mining, combined with mitigating the impact of a landfill through permanent monitoring of surface and ground water combined with water treatment and gas capturing; (2) Classic remediation, i.e., excavation of a landfill combined with re-landfilling in a sanitary landfill and/or incineration of the light fraction of the landfill; (3) Enhanced Landfill Mining – as studied in the NEW-MINE project, in which mining is combined with the aim of maximising recovery of resources from the landfill.

Following the introductory lecture, different aspects of the assessment were introduced. Steven Van Passel (University of Antwerp and Hasselt University, Belgium) introduced the techno-economic assessment of landfill mining projects, while Niclas Svensson (Linköping University, Sweden), introduced the life-cycle assessment of landfill mining projects. Subsequently, Johan Springael. (University of Antwerp, Belgium) gave an introduction to Multicriteria Decision Analysis, in which techno-economic, environmental and socio-economic aspects (including the so-called social licence to operate) are combined to come to motivate a decision on which landfill management approach to select.

Session 2 – “Industrial flowsheeting and thermo-economic assessment”

Session 2 was organised by the SOCRATES project. SOCRATES studies the development of near-zero waste processes for the recycling of low-grade metal containing industrial waste streams, such as bottom ashes, copper tailings and slags and sludges from the non-ferrous industry, commonly deposited in industrial landfills and tailing ponds. Markus Reuter and Alejandro Abadias (Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Germany) illustrated how novel near-zero waste flowsheets for the treatment of these residues are assessed within the SOCRATES project. Focus of the session was on the primary copper production flowsheet (from rock to metal), in which two scenarios were compared, being production of copper without treatment of wastes and with additional metal recovery from wastes (slags and drosses). The analysis was performed through composing a mass and energy balance of the flowsheet and performing an exergy analysis and life cycle assessment.

Session 3 – “From the lab to the market, business development & commercialisation”

The third and final Session focussed on the steps to be taken to evolve from a lab invention to a commercial product. Two lectures were given: one by Christina Meskers (Umicore, Belgium) on the upscaling of technology throughout different technology readiness levels and the associated business case assessment at each upscaling step; A second lecture was given by Nicolas Menou (EIT RawMaterials, Belgium), focussing on creation of a start-up to exploit novel technology.

In the second part of the session, students were challenged to draft a pitch on the commercialisation of 2 technologies selected from the SOCRATES and NEW-MINE projects. For each technology, 4 groups competed for the best company idea. Two groups were selected as winners; i.e. the company “Rotten Tomatoes”, exploiting sensor-based sorting technology from the NEW-MINE project for sorting of tomatoes, and the group InCLeach, exploiting chloride leaching technology from the SOCRATES project for the near zero-waste recycling of low-grade residues.

Acknowledgements

• The NEW-MINE project has received funding from the European Union’s EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 under Grant Agreement No 721185.
• The SOCRATES project has received funding from the European Union’s EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 under Grant Agreement No 721385.
• The EIT RawMaterials IMAGINE programme received funding from the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union, under the Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.

The tuition fee of KU Leuven PhD students linked to the Arenberg Doctoral School is waived. For the other candidates, the following registration fees apply:

• Selected students from SINReM (EIT): EUR 200
• Invited students from NEW-MINE & SOCRATES ESRs: EUR 200
• EURELCO Members: EUR  250
• Other PhD students and postdocs: EUR 300
• Non-EURELCO Industrial affiliates: EUR 450

The registration fee includes all lunches and coffee breaks (three days), a drink during the poster session and a summer school dinner with the speakers on the second day. In case of cancellation of participation before 10/08/2018 the registration fee will be refunded deducting a handling fee of EUR 35 per person. In case of cancellation after 10/08/2018 no refunds of any kind will be made.

As soon as your application is accepted, you will receive the information to make the payment of the registration fee.