After 10 years in #circularity, I have compiled a list of 100 people and organizations, who I think you should follow. It is being released across 25 posts until Christmas and acts as a zero waste alternative to an advent calendar.

In this twenty-first post, I am focusing on people and organizations pushing for circularity in #rareearths and #criticalrawmaterials.

81) Enrico Pizzi and Gianluca Torta are the co-founders of RarEarth. The startup produces permanent magnets from recycled materials. RarEarth has specialized in extracting and recovering rare earths from neodymium magnets. Enrico’s and Gianluca’s goal is to reduce the waste and environmental impact of producing permanent magnets, by making the recycling process more efficient and sustainable. By reclaiming magnets from existing waste streams, the two also hope to contribute to reducing geopolitical dependencies and to creating a reliable supply of rare earth materials for various industries.

82) Marie Perrin is a co-founder of REEcover. During her PhD at the ETH Zürich, Marie developed a new method to separate rare earths from e-waste, using an extractant to alter the solubility of the elements. This can be used to efficiently recover europium from spent fluorescent lamps at levels that are upwards of 50 times higher than through the separation methods used to date. Due to the high costs typically associated with the energy and chemicals needed to recover rare earths, less than 1% are currently recycled. By recycling rare earths domestically, Marie and her team hope to help alleviate environmental and geopolitical concerns.

83) Pietrogiovanni Cerchier is the founder of 9-Tech. The startup works to recover valuable materials from e-waste. 9-Tech focuses on waste upcycling, and it works to make resource recovery more efficient and improve the purity of the materials recovered. While specializing in the recycling of photovoltaic systems, 9-Tech has also worked on the recycling of rare earths from smartphone screens, the extraction of neodymium from permanent magnets, and the extraction of cobalt and lithium from lithium-ion batteries. Through his work, Pietrogiovanni hopes to increase material recovery rates and minimize the environmental impacts of materials.

84) Rod Eggert is the deputy director of the Critical Materials Innovation Hub (CMI) and a professor at the Colorado School of Mines. Rod is a geochemist, who became an economist. The focus of his research and teaching is on mineral economics and public policy. Amongst others, Rod’s research has explored how to improve the recycling and reuse of materials, and it has looked at the intersection of rare earths with the circular economy. Rod works to educate the next generation by teaching his students about the ins and outs of mineral resource economics.

🔔 Stay tuned to to see the whole list of 100 people and organizations to follow unfold on LinkedIn, our blog, and our app.