The Scarce alliance (Singapore CEA Alliance for Research in Circular Economy) associating Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the CEA is dedicated to research in favor of the circular economy. It was launched on November 23, 2018 in Paris with the creation of the joint CEA-NTU laboratory.
Jointly headed by Jean-Christophe P. Gabriel of Iramis and Madhavi Srinivasan of NTU, this will be inaugurated in March 2019 in Singapore. The joint NTU-CEA laboratory is located on the NTU campus within the Energy Research Institute at NTU (ERI@N). It aims to improve the recycling and recovery of materials from electronic waste such as lithium-ion batteries and printed circuit boards. In particular, it will develop advanced processes for separating and extracting these wastes, which are more energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly than current methods.
It is organized around four families of materials: lithium-ion batteries, silicon photovoltaic panels, printed circuit boards from consumer electronics, and toxic plastics such as those containing brominated flame retardants.
Upstream, researchers will analyze the problems caused by current methods of extracting metals for these components, notably their energy voracity and the use of strong acids. They will propose advanced substitution processes, using environmentally-friendly solvents to dissolve and extract metals selectively. They will explore means of physical activation in combination with chemical reactions to facilitate dissolution of materials, and test the use of various bacteria and fungi to extract metals and toxic elements from materials to be recycled.
In addition to metals, the recycling technologies developed can also be applied to plastics, wood and building materials.