General introduction to critical materials

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Delft University of Technology

General introduction to critical materials

Offerman, Erik DOI 10.1142/9789813271050_0001 Publication date 2019 Document Version Final published version Published in

Critical Materials

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Offerman, E. (2019). General introduction to critical materials. In E. Offerman (Ed.), Critical Materials: Underlying Causes and Sustainable Mitigation Strategies (pp. 1-10). (World Scientific Series in Current Energy Issues; Vol. 5). World Scientific. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789813271050_0001

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Critical Materials

Underlying Causes and Sustainable Mitigation Strategies

World Scientific Series in Current Energy Issues Volume 5

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Offerman, S. Erik, editor. Title: Critical materials : underlying causes and sustainable mitigation strategies / S. Erik Offerman, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. Description: New Jersey : World Scientific, [2018] | Series: World Scientific series in current energy issues ; volume 5 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018028408 | ISBN 9789813271043 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Raw materials--Research. | Strategic materials--Research. | Mineral industries--Environmental aspects. | Sustainable engineering. Classification: LCC TA404.2 .O43 2018 | DDC 333.8--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018028408

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2019 by Author This is an Open Access ebook published by World Scientific Publishing Company and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Atribution (CC-BY) Licence. For any available supplementary material, please visit https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/11007#t=suppl Typeset by Stallion Press Email: enquiries@stallionpress.com Printed in Singapore

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January 9, 2020 12:59 Critical Materials 9in x 6in b3338-ch01 page 1

Chapter 1 General Introduction to Critical Materials

S. Erik Oﬀerman

Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 2, 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands

A growing world population and rising levels of prosperity are driving up the global demand for energy and materials and are increasing the negative impact on the environment.1 Challenges related to energy use, materials consumption, and climate change are closely intertwined. On the one hand, producing materials consumes about 21% of global energy use and is respon-sible for about the same percentage of carbon emitted to the atmosphere.2 On the other hand, the transition from a fossil to a non-fossil electricity mix — to mitigate climate change — would result in a much higher usage of metals. The increase in the usage of metals would range from a few per-cent to a factor of a thousand for certain metals.3Concerns over the future security of the supply of raw materials has led to the identiﬁcation of criti-cal raw materials for the USA, Japan, and the EU.4–8As part of the World Scientiﬁc Series on Current Energy Issues, this book is focused on ‘Critical

Materials’.

A united and worldwide eﬀort to build and share knowledge about the consumption and production of materials appears to be a more recent development than equivalent eﬀorts for energy-related issues and for climate change when the founding dates of the relevant intergovernmental organiza-tions are considered. The International Resource Panel (IRP) of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) was founded fairly recently in 2007, whereas the International Energy Agency (IEA) was founded in 1974

c

2019 The Author. This is an Open Access chapter published by World Scientiﬁc

Publishing Company. It is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribu-tion (CC-BY) License which permits use, distribuAttribu-tion and reproducAttribu-tion in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.

1

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2 S. Erik Oﬀerman

and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was founded in 1988.

Since its establishment, the IRP has published a number of reports that provide insight into the grand societal challenge of materials. In 2011, the International Resource Panel stated that “the annual resource extraction would need to triple by 2050, compared to extraction in 2000, in case the levels of resource use per head for all global citizens reached the levels of current resource use of the average European”.1 Further work of the IRP shows that the material footprint per capita is not uniform around the world.9 For example, North America required about 30 metric tons of material per capita in 2017. In contrast, in Africa the material footprint was just below 3 metric tons per person in 2017. These large diﬀerences in the material footprint between North America and Africa point to a large disparity in wealth and opportunity.

Furthermore, the IRP provides information about the changes in the material footprint per capita per region in the world over the last 27 years, which gives insight into the development of material demand per region.9 The average per capita material footprint of Asia and the Pacific has grown from 4.8 metric tons per capita in 1990 to 11.4 metric tons per capita in 2017, a 3.2% average yearly growth. This can be related to rapid economic growth underpinned by the region’s unprecedented industrial and urban transitions (in scale and speed).9 The average growth of the per capita material footprint of Latin America and the Caribbean and West Asia was half that of Asia and the Pacific, at around 1.4% average growth per year in the period from 1990 to 2017. Africa, on the contrary, has seen no growth in the per capita material supply for final demand over the past three decades, which coincides with a stagnating material standard of living of large parts of the population. The material footprint of Europe has remained approxi-mately constant at values that are just above 20 metric tons per capita per year between 2010 and 2017. North America has even seen a decrease in material footprint per capita over the last 17 years from about 35 metric tons to about 30 metric tons. This points to a saturation level of the mate-rial footprint in developed economies.

The general trends over the last decades suggest that the material foot-prints per capita in countries in Europe and North America — with devel-oped economies — generally remain constant or even decrease, but that the average per capita material footprints of developing economies are rapidly increasing. The growth in material footprint per capita in countries with developing economies will have enormous eﬀects in the near future, both

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General Introduction to Critical Materials 3 economically and politically, as greater numbers of people compete for lim-ited material resources at a viable price.

The first signs of geopolitical tensions related to resources have already appeared in the recent past. In September 2010, following a diplomatic clash with Japan, China briefly suspended exports of rare-earth minerals (REM).10 In January 2011, China reduced its export quota by 35% for REM. Following a World Trade Organization ruling, China officially raised production for the rest of the year but began closing dozens of rare-earth producers in August that year, while forcing private companies to close or to merge with Bao Gang, a state-controlled monopoly. This resulted in a sharp increase in the price of the earth metals. The price of the rare-earth metals also became more volatile. The price for certain rare-rare-earth metals (e.g. dysprosium) temporarily increased by 10–50 times. This was the result of the near monopoly (95%) of the supply of REM by China at the time and the limited availability of substitutes for some of the REM, given their unique properties. The Obama administration filed a complaint to the World Trade Organization at that time, which eased the export restrictions for the time being. However, the underlying causes have not diminished.

At present, we live in a largely linear materials economy of ‘take-make-use-dispose’: raw materials are extracted from the environment, con-verted into (high-tech) materials, used in products and disposed of at the end of the useful life of the product. This is illustrated by the recycling rates of materials, which may be less than 1% for certain elements in the periodic table (e.g. the rare-earth metals) and which generally decrease for higher-grade materials.11The linear economy is not sustainable in the long term, since the world has a ﬁnite capacity to provide resources and to absorb waste. A circular economy, in which material loops are closed, promises to be a more sustainable way of using materials.12,13 Several chapters in this book describe the diﬀerent aspects of the circular materials economy.

The aim of this book is to give the reader a deeper understanding of the underlying causes of what is nowadays termed ‘Critical Materials’ and to give the reader insight into possible sustainable mitigation strategies. The topic of critical materials requires both a ‘systems view ’, which considers the geopolitical, economic, energy and environmental aspects of materials, and an ‘in-depth materials view ’, which considers the mechanical, chemical, and physical properties, the processing, and the microscopic structure of materials. Parts I and II of the book are mainly related to the systems perspective of critical materials, whereas Parts III and IV mainly focus

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on the in-depth materials perspective. However, ‘zooming in’ and ‘zooming

out ’ is inherent to the complexity of the topic of critical materials and

therefore present throughout this book.

The following sections describe the coherency between the diﬀerent chapters and the structure of this book.

Part I: Geopolitics and the Energy–Materials Nexus

Raw and high-tech materials are an important commodity for most economies in the world and are therefore of geopolitical importance. The combination of population growth and economic development can be a driver for resource nationalism, which is centered around the availability and control of raw materials, as presented in Chapter 1 by Rademaker. The rare-earth-metals-crisis in 2011, which was the result of export restrictions of rare-earth-metals imposed by China, is an illustrative example of this.

The geopolitical role of raw and high-tech materials cannot be fully understood without considering the changing geopolitics of energy, which is presented by De Jong in Chapter 2. Access to cheap, reliable sources of energy has always been a key requirement for economic development. Throughout history episodes of economic growth have been underpinned by a reliance on particular types of fuel. History shows several disrup-tive changes in global energy production. A major disrupdisrup-tive change that occurred recently in the global energy landscape has been the rapid increase in renewable sources of energy, which are considered to be our future because they are sustainable.

This has important implications, since ‘energy’ and ‘materials’ are two different sides of the same coin. On one hand, materials are needed to con-vert the different primary forms of energy into electricity and other usable forms of energy. On the other hand, about 21% of global energy production is needed to produce and process materials from ore and waste into prod-ucts.2 The intimate relationship between energy and materials becomes stronger with the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, since renewable energy technologies are more material intensive due to the more diffuse nature of renewable energy sources compared to the high energy den-sity of fossil fuels.3 Certain materials which are used in renewable energy technologies are critical in terms of scarcity, geopolitics, supply risk, com-petition with the food industry, carbon footprint, and/or conflict minerals. This is illustrated in Chapter 3, in which Kelder shows that the global quest for intermittent renewable energy sources (wind, solar) requires a

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General Introduction to Critical Materials 5 strong increase in the use of rechargeable energy storage devices, such as batteries, and the associated materials.

Part II: Defining Critical Materials

Geopolitical developments around materials and energy stimulated scien-tific efforts to address the lack of understanding of and the lack of data on nonfuel minerals that are important to the economy. This has led to the identification of critical materials for the USA and Japan in 2008 and for Europe in 2010. The work of Peck, which is presented in Chapter 4, shows a historical perspective to critical materials thinking, which led to the defin-ing of critical materials from 2006 onwards. Critical materials thinkdefin-ing has been present through the Second World War and the Cold War and includes concerns over energy availability and environmental impacts. Chapter 4 shows how the historical military–energy framework for assessing strategic materials has evolved into critical materials approaches to help address the challenges of energy, materials, and the environment in the 21st century.

Criticality can be defined as “the quality, state, or degree of being of the highest importance”. But how can we understand what is meant by “highest importance”? In Chapter 5, Graedel and Reck define and describe a multi-parameter approach to the criticality issue that involves (as do the efforts of other researchers and governments) a variety of geological, economic, technological, environmental, and social concerns. Their results suggest that the highest level of concern should be for metals whose processing and use involves extensive separation from parent ores, high levels of embodied energy, little opportunity for substitution, and low levels of recyclability. Improved approaches to material use should thus involve the preferential utilization of non-critical materials, attention to the potential for material reuse at the design stage, and a focus on increasing the efficiency and the total amount of recycling.

Lists of critical materials may change from country to country, from business to business and from time to time. In Chapter 6, Goddin identiﬁes supply chain risks for critical materials from a business perspective. For companies, understanding the environmental impacts of their products and operations is steadily rising in their business agenda. Common business drivers include:

1. Legislation on energy consumption, hazardous substances and conﬂict minerals.

2. Volatile material and energy prices.

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3. Product marketing, brand value and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

4. Stimulus for product innovation.

The approach presented by Goddin aims to integrate product sustainability into the strong culture for business risk management that already exists within most advanced manufacturing organizations.

In Chapter 7, Rietveld and Bastein present the search for an appropri-ate criticality assessment of raw mappropri-aterials relappropri-ated to the Dutch economy. Past events and predictions suggest the need for a methodology to assess the criticality of raw materials to national economies. Existing criticality methodologies were combined to develop a raw materials criticality method-ology for the Dutch economy, including materials embedded in intermediate or ﬁnished goods as well.

Part III: Critical Material Mitigation Strategies

The over-arching vision of critical material mitigation strategies may be summarized as a transition from a linear ‘take-make-use-dispose’ economy to a circular economy.12,13Critical material mitigation strategies are often technical in nature. However, the implementation of these strategies into the economy may depend strongly on the development of novel business models (e.g. leasing products instead of selling products), existing and future leg-islation, and public acceptance. These non-technical aspects of the circular economy are considered to be essential, but they are beyond the scope of this book. Instead, Parts III and IV present critical material mitigation strategies that are of a technical nature.

In general, critical material mitigation strategies that are of a technical nature may include:

1. Circular product design

2. Substitution of critical materials by

a. non-critical materials,

b. alternative technologies that do not rely on critical materials c. replacing a product that contains critical materials by a service that

does not rely on critical materials.

3. Improve the resource eﬃciency of materials

4. Maximize the properties (functionality) per unit of material to minimize material and/or energy use for a particular function.

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General Introduction to Critical Materials 7 5. Sustainable mining

6. Materials design for recycling

7. Minimize the embodied energy of the material 8. Valorization of by-products/waste of materials

9. Improve the recycling and the recyclability of materials

In Part III, three diﬀerent critical material mitigation strategies are discussed:

1. Circular product design

2. Substitution of critical materials 3. Sustainable mining

Part IV is speciﬁcally focused on the diﬀerent aspects of recycling, which is considered to be an essential critical material mitigation strategy.

In Chapter 8, Bakker, Den Hollander, Peck and Balkenende explore how embedding circular economic principles into product design practice and education could help product designers to take critical material prob-lems into account. They introduce four product design strategies that address materials criticality: (1) avoiding and (2) minimizing the use of critical materials, (3) designing products for prolonged use and reuse, and (4) designing products for recycling.

In Chapter 9, Arechabaleta Guenechea and Oﬀerman present a case study related to the substitution of the critical alloying element Niobium that is used in certain nano-steels. Nano-steels are a novel grade of advanced high-strength steels that are suitable for use in the chassis and suspension of cars. The high strength and ductility per unit mass make the nano-steels resource-eﬃcient and reduce vehicle weight while maintaining crash worthiness. The excellent mechanical properties of certain nano-steels rely on the addition of small amounts (up to 0.1 wt.%) of Niobium as an alloying element to the steel. Niobium is considered to be a critical raw material by the European Union due to its high economic importance as an alloying element in advanced, high-strength steel grades and due to the high supply risk related to the high degree of monopolistic production within the supply chain. This chapter describes the fundamental materials science that is needed for the substitution of the critical alloying element Niobium by Vanadium as an alloying element in nano-steels.

In Chapter 10, Kasry and Maarouf, present another case study that is related to the substitution of the critical element Indium, which is used in

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transparent conducting layers for solar cells and smart phones. Both appli-cations require the use of transparent conducting electrodes with very low electrical sheet resistance and very high transparency. In conventional thin film solar cells, the transparent conducting electrodes consist of Indium Tin Oxide, which includes the critical element Indium. Hence, the devel-opment of alternative TCE materials is desirable to achieve the perfor-mance metrics of low cost and compatibility with flexible substrates, while maintaining acceptable engineering performance characteristic of the sheet resistance and optical transparency. In this chapter, Kasry and Maarouf describe their efforts to use carbon nanomaterials, specifically graphene, as transparent conducting electrodes.

A growing world population and rising levels of prosperity will lead to an increasing demand for raw materials in the future in a business as usual scenario.1 As long as the increased demand for raw materials can-not be mitigated with increased material eﬃciency and recycling alone, it requires — in turn — a continued supply of raw materials from mining. In Chapter 11, Voncken and Buxton investigate sustainability in mining: meet-ing the resource and service needs of current and future generations without compromising the health of the ecosystems that provide them. A number of aspects of sustainability in mining are addressed in this chapter: the use of energy, the use of water, land disruption, reducing waste (involving solid waste, liquid waste and gaseous waste), acid rock drainage when dealing with sulﬁde minerals, and restoring environmental functions at mine sites after mining has been completed. To do everything in an environmentally sound way is costly, but in the end necessary. Regarding this, it is concluded that governmental regulations concerning the emission of waste, the storage of waste, and the re-use of the land after mining are essential to provide a sustainable form of mining and mineral processing.

Part IV: Recycling as a Critical Material Mitigation Strategy

Part IV of this book is dedicated to recycling as a critical material miti-gation strategy. This part of the book follows the main steps involved in the process of recycling. The recycling process starts with the collection of waste. In the second step, the mixed solid waste is separated into dif-ferent streams to enhance the concentration of the diﬀerent target (to be recycled) materials, which are subjected to further processing. In the third step (in this case the focus is on the recycling of metals), the extraction and reﬁning of metals from scrap and residues takes place. The subsequent

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General Introduction to Critical Materials 9 processing of the reﬁned metals to high-value alloys can follow the same metallurgical principles that relate to the case study about the substitu-tion of niobium in steel which is described in Chapter 10. Part IV ends with an example in which a waste stream is turned into a resource, i.e. the recovery of rare-earths elements from Bauxite residue (red mud).

The first step that is needed in order to recycle (or re-use) products that contain critical materials is the collection of waste. In Chapter 12, Welink presents how the collection of waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) from consumers and professional organizations is organized and stimulated. Lessons can be learned from the collection of WEEE, such as how to influence and encourage consumers to collect WEEE separate from other waste, and how to stimulate companies in separating waste. These lessons could also be applied to other products containing critical materials. The second step in the recycling process is the separation of solid waste into different streams to enhance the concentration of the different target (to be recycled) materials, which is presented in Chapter 13 by Bakker. Efficient mechanical and sensor-based separation of mixed solid waste into valuable secondary materials is a critical step in recycling and in the preservation of primary resources. The chapter gives examples of the physical principles that are behind many contemporary separation technologies.

The third step in the recycling process (in this case the focus is on the recycling of metals) is the extraction and refining of metals from scrap and residues. In Chapter 14, Yang presents the main technologies that are avail-able for extraction and refining of metals: pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy, and electrolysis (electrowinning and electro-refining).

The last chapter of Part IV of this book describes an example in which a waste stream is turned into a resource. In Chapter 15, Borra, Blanpain, Pontikes, Binnemans, and Van Gervend show how the recovery of rare earth elements can be realized from bauxite residue, which is a by-product of aluminium production.

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