Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences is set to become an international meeting place for many academics. The colloquium will take place on 5 and 6 October 2015 in the Audimax on the Kleve campus of Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences.
Kleve/Kamp-Lintfort, 30 September 2015: Rare-earth elements are used worldwide in innovative technologies due to their unique chemical and physical properties. They are indispensable components of many modern products, particularly electronic devices. The rare-earth elements comprise a group of 17 chemical elements, such as scandium, lanthanum and europium. They occur naturally in the form of minerals, such as oxides, carbonates and phosphates. These elements and other compounds are then extracted from these minerals.
The analysis of these elements is highly complex, but must be mastered in order to monitor the extraction of rare-earth elements (REEs) from raw materials and the entire product processing chain. Participants at the colloquium will address the challenges of analytical chemistry and discuss how to detect and determine REEs as sensitively as possible.
Modern instrumental methods, the necessary equipment and their performance capabilities will therefore be key topics of the presentations and posters. In many cases, it is only through the efficient use of this equipment that effective analysis of these highly challenging elements can be achieved.
In addition to instrumental developments, topics relating to applications across a wide range of fields will be covered. SEE must be analysed in water and other environmental samples, as their widespread use means they now also occur in the environment as unwanted contaminants. The issue of recycling these elements from waste materials also requires sophisticated analytical techniques. The development of many products with which we are familiar would not be possible without the SEE. High-quality optical glass, for example, cannot be manufactured without the SEE.
