PhD defense of Tobias LOPIAN

Abstract:

Recycling of rare earths from electronic waste has still not found a significant industrial realization. One reason is the lack of optimized separation procedures due to poor fundamental knowledge on these systems. Due to the chemical and physical similarities of these metals, designing an efficient, adaptive and predictive formulation is still out of scope of possibilities. The supramolecular interpretation of complex-formation in the organic phase has gained an increasing importance in the last years. It is the most promising approach allowing the explanation of diverse phenomena, such as third phase formation and strong signals in small scattering experiments and to revert to methods well known from surfactant science. Our contribution towards a more complete understanding in this matter is the analysis of the electrodynamic behaviour of such phases and the correlation of these findings with the results of self-assembly properties and mass transport in these media.