Summary

• Slags are byproducts of ore processing or, in a wider usage of the term, the product of smelting or melting of other raw materials, sludges and wastes. 
• “Engineered Artificial Minerals” (EnAMs) are generated from primary slags, slag admixture and/or further additives so that critical elements can be recovered from waste (slag) streams through down-stream mechanical processing. 
• The discovery and optimization of the formulation of EnAMs faces fundamental problems due to the complicate nature of slags. Slags are chemically complex multi-component materials outside of thermodynamic equilibrium; for this high complexity, their direct (thermodynamic or atomistic) modelling is elusive. 
• This project targets the problem of EnAM discovery and optimization their formulation by creating a relevant and consistent dataset and suitable descriptors, which combine physical properties and down-stream processability.

Funding

DFG (German Research Foundation) 

Duration

01/2022 - 12/2024

Project partners

Friedrich Schiller University Jena: 

• Prof. Dr.-Ing. Lothar Wondraczek (Lothar [dot] wondraczek [at] uni-jena [dot] de)
• Josef Slowik (josef [dot] slowik [at] uni-jena [dot] de)

Contact:   Dr. Stephan Sander, J.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Sindy Fuhrmann