Technologies Safeguard the Circular Economy of Valuable Metals

While cop­per and pre­cious met­als are essen­tial com­po­nents in the elec­tron­ics and semi-con­duc­tor indus­tries, lithi­um has also devel­oped into one of the most impor­tant raw mate­ri­als for recharge­able bat­ter­ies and there­fore the entire con­sumer elec­tron­ics sec­tor. The path from ore to met­al is still very com­pli­cat­ed. In addi­tion to ore pro­duc­tion, the extrac­tion of met­als to obtain the high­est puri­ty is a com­plex process. Only extreme­ly pre­cise and accu­rate analy­sis makes it pos­si­ble to detect very low and ultra-traces, par­tic­u­lar­ly in met­al recy­cling. Ana­lytik Jena pro­vides an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to a sus­tain­able cir­cu­lar econ­o­my with their inno­v­a­tive technologies.

In con­trast to pre­cious met­als, met­als do not exist in their pure form but are bound in min­er­als and ores – which are some­times very wide­ly dis­trib­uted, or some­times only found in a few areas and in very low con­cen­tra­tions in the ore. Nev­er­the­less, their extrac­tion and recov­ery are worth­while, because dwin­dling resources and an increas­ing demand for these valu­able met­als go hand-in-hand. It is there­fore absolute­ly essen­tial to extract and reuse scrap met­al with­in the scope of met­al recy­cling. This sus­tain­able cir­cu­lar econ­o­my will con­tin­ue to become increas­ing­ly significant.

How­ev­er, the pro­duc­tion and recov­ery of met­als is high­ly com­plex and requires extreme pre­ci­sion to meet the high appli­ca­tion require­ments such met­als need to meet. The accu­rate quan­tifi­ca­tion of the met­al that actu­al­ly needs ana­lyz­ing is affect­ed by the con­tent of oth­er base met­als such as cop­per, cobalt, chromi­um, nick­el, iron or zinc and trace ele­ments (through addi­tives or con­t­a­m­i­nants). Ana­lytik Jena cov­ers the entire ana­lyt­i­cal process from ore to met­al with its meth­ods – from AAS via ICP-OES right up to ICP-MS – and the cor­re­spond­ing instruments.

High-Per­for­mance Atom­ic Absorp­tion with the con­trAA and novAA 800 Series 

In the ini­tial process steps of the val­ue chain, numer­ous raw mate­ri­als must be ana­lyzed to obtain detailed spec­i­fi­ca­tions about the start­ing mate­r­i­al. This involves the quan­tifi­ca­tion of the main con­tents and con­cen­tra­tions of ele­ments, pri­mar­i­ly by means of flame AAS (atom­ic absorp­tion spec­trom­e­try). The high­ly effi­cient instru­ment series of Ana­lytik Jena, con­trAA and novAA 800, mas­ter these tasks eas­i­ly and cost-effectively. 

Detect­ing Ultra-Traces with Plas­maQuant 9100 and Plas­maQuant MS 

In the fur­ther process, the require­ments for ana­lyt­ics change. Trace and ultra-trace ele­ments can sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect the qual­i­ty of high-puri­ty met­als or alloys, which is why their detec­tion and sub­se­quent elim­i­na­tion require even greater accu­ra­cy and pre­ci­sion. This is where the high-res­o­lu­tion Plas­maQuant 9100 ICP-OES series and the high­ly sen­si­tive Plas­maQuant 9100 ICP-MS series offer max­i­mum per­for­mance, and thus reli­a­bil­i­ty and efficiency.

The AAS, ICP-OES and ICP-MS tech­nolo­gies offered by Ana­lytik Jena are extreme­ly well designed for the spe­cial require­ments that need to be met in the indi­vid­ual phas­es of the val­ue chain:

Robust­ness & User Friendliness 

Espe­cial­ly the explo­ration of pos­si­ble min­ing sites and the min­ing itself often take place under harsh envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions and in very remote loca­tions – not infre­quent­ly at very high alti­tudes. Air pres­sure and oxy­gen con­tent are very low in such envi­ron­ments and can strong­ly affect the mea­sure­ments. Suit­able lab­o­ra­to­ry equip­ment is also usu­al­ly rare in such loca­tions. The analy­sis instru­ments offered by Ana­lytik Jena are designed for such cir­cum­stances: User-friend­ly, easy to set up and if nec­es­sary, easy to use by per­son­nel with­out in-depth spe­cial­ist training.

Stan­dard­iza­tion & Efficiency 

The avail­abil­i­ty of con­sumer mate­ri­als at the min­ing sites is often just as rare as oxy­gen sat­u­ra­tion. Rare or spe­cial chem­i­cals are often dif­fi­cult to obtain. The instru­ments there­fore should not pose unrea­son­able demands, but should still meet the nec­es­sary high require­ments. The all-rounder in ele­men­tal analy­sis, the novAA 800, for exam­ple, can be oper­at­ed with LPG gas, which is avail­able even in the most remote places on earth. 

Sen­si­tiv­i­ty & Precision 

The ana­lyt­i­cal instru­ments must be high­ly sen­si­tive, accu­rate and pre­cise due to the low con­cen­tra­tions of met­als in the ores and the adverse effect of oth­er met­al present in the sam­ple. The solu­tions designed by Ana­lytik Jena offer suit­able ana­lyt­i­cal meth­ods for the quan­tifi­ca­tion of even very low met­al con­tent in ores, con­t­a­m­i­nants in pure met­als and for mon­i­tor­ing treat­ment process­es. With their high sen­si­tiv­i­ty and low detec­tion lim­its, the Plas­maQuant 9100 series and the Plas­maQuant MS series cov­er the entire con­cen­tra­tion range – with peak per­for­mance offered by the Plas­maQuant 9100 Elite and Plas­maQuant MS Elite.

Automa­tion & Eco­nom­ic Efficiency 

As the quan­ti­ty of sam­ples for such rou­tine appli­ca­tions is con­stant­ly grow­ing, ana­lyt­i­cal instru­ments must meet the increased sam­pling rate through automa­tion and/or inno­v­a­tive ana­lyt­i­cal tech­niques. This not only ensures improved through­put rates, it also reduces the over­all costs for analy­sis and opens up resources for the work­force. The high sam­ple through­put, espe­cial­ly of the Plas­maQuant MS Q makes it possible.

You can read about the specifics of how Ana­lytik Jena’s instru­ments can meet all these fac­tors and con­tribute to sus­tain­able met­al extrac­tion and recov­ery in our detailed eBook “From Ore to Metal”.