Dr. Ansgar Fendel

Dr. Ansgar Fendel works as a managing director at REMONDIS where he is responsible for systems engineering and all technical investments. Moreover, he is also responsible for energy, a growing business field that has become increasingly important for REMONDIS over the last few years.

Between 1995 and 2005, he was in charge of, as among other positions managing director, converting and further developing the former 280ha VAW Aluminium site in Lünen into Europe’s largest recycling centre by implementing a far-reaching restructuring programme. Each year, approx. 1.5 million megagrams of waste is used here to produce raw, base and semi-finished products as well as energy on an industrial scale.

Presentation

Recycling of Less Common Elements: Feasible business model – today or tomorrow

“Less common elements - LCEs” fulfil all the basic prerequisites needed for concentrating on recycling: high prices, restricted availability and the fact that technology in many products is dependent on such materials. This has all resulted in the national economy becoming highly dependent on “LCEs”. Politicians have now recognized this fact and are currently looking at ways to reduce dependency on countries producing LCEs. For all intents and purposes, these framework conditions should be an excellent prerequisite for starting to recycle “LCEs”, however to be able to achieve materials recycling or recover the raw materials, it is essential that a greater concentration of the recyclable fractions is created from waste streams, in general via sorting and classification processes. Although it is known in theory in which components rare earths can potentially be used, we have no coherent or practical knowledge base – except for the element neodymium – on which components must be targeted and separated to achieve a concentration of rare earths. The separation technology currently available is being discussed as an example.