About Us
The IME Metallurgical Process Engineering and Metal Recycling – Institute and Chair of RWTH Aachen University (short form: IME) at RWTH Aachen University is a teaching and research institute in the field of metallurgical extraction, recycling, refining and synthesis of non-ferrous metals and alloys. Current research focuses strongly on activities related to the circular economy. For example, ongoing research projects are developing metallurgical processes that enable sustainable management of metal-bearing waste and residual materials and thus strengthen the supply of raw materials in the European economic area. The IME is integrated in the department for “Materials Science and Materials Engineering” (MuW) of the Faculty of Georesources and Materials Engineering.
Our Organization
Research Areas
The traditional focus of recycling metallurgy as a contribution to the circular economy is based on the use of TBRCs or electric arc furnaces, where reprocessed battery components, electronic scrap, used catalytic converters but also industrial residues such as dusts, sludges or slags are processed.
In the field of materials process technology, inert gas/vacuum metallurgy with the processes of inductive melting, electroslag remelting and vacuum arc melting occupies a large space, and is supplemented by many refining processes for the production of very pure metals (zone melting, fractional crystallization, distillation and purge gas treatment).
The third research platform consists of laboratories for fundamental research, in which thermochemically modeled equilibria between metal and slag are experimentally validated, the kinetics of metallurgical reactions are determined, and properties of molten phases (e.g. viscosity, density, surface tension, conductivity) are determined.
In 2017, the IME succeeded in protecting the trademark “Green Metallurgy” throughout Europe. Metallurgical concepts and processes that are based on the idea of environmentally friendly, sustainable, zero-waste and low-emission metallurgy are identified with this name/logo.
Awards and Cooperations
The IME has received various awards for its scientific achievements in the field of non-ferrous metallurgy. For example, the institute was awarded the German Raw Material Efficiency Prize 2012 by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy for the process developed with the company Accurec Recycling GmbH for the recovery of raw materials from electronic waste, in particular from batteries. In addition, the IME was the winner of the world’s most highly endowed metallurgical Kaiserpfalz Prize of the Wirtschaftsvereinigung Metalle in 2008, 2012 and 2016. Thematically, battery recycling as well as nanotechnology and titanium metallurgy were backgrounds for this honor.
The IME was actively involved in the foundation of the European research network EIT RawMaterials and represents the interests of the RWTH as a core partner (rectorate representative). RWTH’s participation in EIT RawMaterials strengthens its presence in the European region, provides information on developments in the raw materials industry and enables the promotion of teaching and innovation projects. As one of six institutes at RWTH Aachen University, the IME is a founding member of the AMAP (Advanced Metals and Processes) open innovation research cluster, in which joint precompetitive research projects are carried out to strengthen aluminum as a material. This research cluster also includes 14 industrial companies.
Intensive cooperation with the National Technical University of Donetsk in Ukraine has resulted in a leading position in the field of titanium metallurgy, which was honored, among other things, with the award of an honorary doctorate to Prof. Bernd Friedrich.[11] The IME maintains further strategic partnerships with the Technical University of Istanbul (hydrometallurgy), the University of Maribor (nanopowders), the National Technical University of Athens (industrial residues) as well as with the University of Belgrade (electrochemistry).
Courses Offer
- The structural change that has taken place in the metal industry in recent years has also had a serious impact on engineering qualifications. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular increasingly demanded interdisciplinary skills. Consequently, an engineer has to be trained who is able to develop and optimize metallurgical processes as well as metal alloys by combining profound knowledge in metallurgy, plant engineering and computer science.
- The practically oriented study of non-ferrous metallurgy in the department “Materials Science and Engineering” is designed to meet these requirements. In doing so, the ability to develop processes for the production of innovative metallic materials as well as for their recycling should be a major focus. The courses offered by the IME are primarily aimed at students of materials engineering, as well as industrial engineering (focus on materials and process engineering) and environmental engineering (focus on raw materials engineering). These are trained at RWTH Aachen University in a 6-semester bachelor’s/4-semester master’s program or in a 4-semester English-language postgraduate program leading to a “Master in Metallurgical Engineering”.
- In all three courses of study, the specializations Thermal Extraction Processes, Thermal Refining Processes and Hydrometallurgy are offered. Furthermore, the elective courses “Resource Efficiency in Metal Recycling”, “Metallurgy and Properties of Al Melts”, “Planning and Economics of Metallurgical Plants” and “The Value Chain of Rare Earths (SE)- Extraction and Recycling” complete the institute’s curriculum.
Our History
1999
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h.c. Bernd Friedrich
(1999 – heute)
In 1999 Prof. Friedrich was designated as the successor of Prof. Kruger. To approach the new generations to join the work of the institute, the department got the new name of “Process Metallurgy and Metal Recycling”, but remained the old institute name.
1977
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Joachim Krüger
(1977 – 1998)
After Prof. Winterhager, Prof. Joachim Krüger succeeded him at the Institute in 1977. The first years of his work were mainly characterized by by establishing close contacts with the relevant industry, with the aim of both the goal of acquiring third-party funding for doctoral students, as well as bring industry and academy closed to each other. His efforts were quickly successful. From the funds raised from from public research projects and industry, as well as through donations. many important pieces of equipment for scientific work, especially on a larger scale in the pyrometallurgical area.
In 1985/86, the Hydrometallurgy Technical Centre was built on the opposite side of the road with Institute and FAHO funds in cooperation with the State Building Authority. The establishment of one of 25 CIP pools (Computer Investment Programme NRW) of the RWTH Aachen in the Institute in 1988/89 and its modernization with Internet access in 1997, also financed by the state of NRW, marked the start of the digital age.
In the last years of his service, Prof. Krüger also actively contributed to the restructuring of the diploma course in metallurgy and materials engineering. This also facilitated the subsequent adaptation to the new credit-point system for Bachelor/Master degrees.
During his time of service, his research focus included not only classical primary metallurgy but also increasingly the recycling of residual and waste materials with the aim of recovering recyclable materials in an environmentally friendly manner and reducing or inerting waste quantities to be landfilled. Based on this wide range of expertise, numerous studies and expert opinions have been prepared for individual companies, entire industrial groups and public authorities. Thus, shortly before the turn of the millennium, the Institute developed into a competent partner of licensing authorities and industry in the areas of material flow management/PIUS.
1952
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h.c. Helmut Winterhager
(1952 – 1977)
After the retirement of Prof. Röntgen, Prof. Helmut Winterhager took over the management of the institute in 1952. His research work covered scientific investigations of the fundamentals in very different areas of nonferrous-metallurgy on the one hand and on the other hand problems that occurred at that time in nonferrous extractive metallurgy and nonferrous metal manufacturing processes.
The fundamental research was concerned for example with the structure and properties of slags or metallurgical properties of ores or other basic materials. Additional dedication took place in the fields of plating and aqueous electrolysis. Furthermore did the institute turn its attention to new metallurgical fields of activity, mainly vacuum metallurgy and the use of plasma torches.
As well as his antecessor, Prof. Winterhager cared a lot about the university’s fate. He also was its president from 1959-1961 and contributed to important structural changes in this function. During his period of service, there were also some structural alterations. In the beginning of the sixties, the institutes’ building was extended and heightened.
1925
Prof. Dr. h.c. Paul Röntgen
(1925 – 1952)
After the death of Prof. Borchers, Prof. Paul Röntgen assumed control of the institute for 27 years (1925-1952). During his period of service, Prof. Röntgen was a big achievement to the university. In addition to his supervision of the institute, he was president of the university from 1932 to 1934 and prorector from 1934 to 1937. He was the first president after the 2nd world war and he invested a lot of energy in the rebuilt and the reopening of the university.
The institutes building itself was heavily damaged in April/May of 1944 due to the war, which made it impossible to continue the institutes business. Based on the rebuilt, which started in october 1945, the education and research programm was able to be reestablished in the new institute of metallurgy in 1949. During this period of rebuilt, the institutes business took place in temporarily arranged rooms in the undestroyed institute of mining. Under the charge of Prof. Röntgen, the main research program was based on zinc and aluminum metallurgy, especially electrothermal and electrolytic processes as well as refining of aluminum.
1898
Prof. Dr. Dr.-Ing. h.c. Wilhelm Borchers
(1898 – 1925)
In 1898, the extracted chair was again split up into the chair of Ferrous Metallurgy and Assaying, which was still under the charge of Ernst Friedrich Dürre and the Chair for Nonferrous Metallurgy, and Blowpipe Fire Assaying, which was under the supervision of Professor Wilhelm Borchers until 1925. This chair was the predecessor for our IME. As Prof. Borchers took over the chair, he did not dispose of any laboratories or other rooms in order to process his research. Thus the first “research laboratory atrium for electro-chemical and electro-metallurgical investigations” was provisionally set up in two empty cellars in the main building and the institute for metallurgy and technical chemistry.
Based on the research achievements of Prof. Borchers in the field of transformation of amorphous carbon by metals and metalloids into graphite, the minister of education sanctioned the building of a new laboratory at the corner Malteserstrasse/Klosterbongart in 1901. This new laboratory “Institut für Metallhüttenkunde und Elektrometallurgie”, opened in 1902, was the first metallurgical research establishment in Germany. Today, you can still see its old façade next to the mining building in the Wüllnerstraße. In 1906 the university of Aachen constructed a new complex of buildings, the “Naumann Institute for the entire Metallurgy”, in the Intzestraße.
1872
Prof. Dr. phil. Ernst Friedrich Dürre
(1872 – 1898)
The origin of the IME Process Metallurgy and Metals Recycling falls into the initial years of the RWTH Aachen. During the foundation of the so-called Rheinisch-Westfälischen Polytechnischen Schule ( Rhineland-Westphalia Polytechnical School) in 1870, a chair for mineralogy and metallurgy was established. In 1872 the so-called “Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine und spezielle Hüttenkunde und Probierkunst” (Chair for Common and Special Metallurgy and Fire Assaying) was extracted from that chair, under the charge of Professor Ernst Friedrich Dürre.
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