Fundamental limits of the supply chain of critical metals and minerals within the circular economy

There is a lot of talk about greening society, greening the supply chain, circular economy etc. The question that needs to be answered is how green is all of this and what shade of green (or grey) is achievable.

This will be the question discussed by Prof. Markus Reuter in his keynote lecture at Critical Minerals '24 in Cape Town in November. The key role of metallurgy and minerals processing will be discussed in applying simulation methods and theory to understand the greenness of systems and in fact what the limits are of the system.

Various cases will be shown, covering process metallurgy, recycling, design for recycling, etc., analysing the system on the basis of exergy and footprinting the system. A large body of published information will be highlighted, rooted in industrial practice, to illustrate how far the industry has also progressed to address green issues fundamentally.

Markus Reuter has been a long time consultant to MEI's sustainability conferences. He is Chief Expert and  Professor at the SMS group GmbH, Germany, Adjunct Professor on Recycling at Curtin University, Australia and Honorary Professor at the Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany, where he was a Director for almost five years. 

Markus has been ranked number 8 in the world in the field of recycling by ScholarGPS, which ranks scholars whose works are of profound impact and of utmost quality (posting of 9th May 2024). In 2014, he received the 1st Prize Publication Award for Handbook of Recycling, by the International Solid Waste Association.

The keynote will provide a great opening to MEI's inaugural Critical Minerals conference, which has a full 2-day programme immediately following Process Mineralogy '24.

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