Videos

What if we could give mining waste a second life? Mining produces a lot of waste, so-called mine tailings. These tailings still contain some leftover valuable metals, Nor Kamariah is researching new approaches to extract these remaining metals from the mining waste, while cleaning these tailings all at once. These clean tailings can then be recycled as construction materials. 

Imagine that, instead of emitting harmful CO2 into the atmosphere, we could recycle it and use it to power your future laptop or smartphone. That's what Kevin Van Daele is researching. He is developing new catalysts to efficiently convert CO2 into formic acid, a valuable chemical that could one day power your future electronic devices. 

Real almonds are expensive. That's why products such as marzipan are sometimes made with synthetic almond flavour. For this, two elements are important: a reactor in which to make these synthetic almond molecules and a catalyst to speed up the chemical reaction. Chemical engineer & marzipan lover Clement Jacquot tells you more about his clever idea to produce more of this synthetic almond flavour, in a much faster way!

Wouldn't it be nice if we could use a sponge to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and help stop global warming? That's what Yoran De Vos (VITO) is hoping to achieve. But his sponge is nothing like an ordinary kitchen sponge.

Did you know that your smartphone contains, among many other precious metals, about 20 milligrams of gold? That may not seem like much, but it's 200 times as much gold as in a small piece of gold ore. Nick Gys (UAntwerpen - VITO) is working on a technique to easily recycle these precious metals from smartphones.