Closing the loop: Towards sustainable metal catalysis in the laboratory

Recovery of precious metals is critical to secure a more sustainable future

Platinum group metals (PGMs) are scarce natural resources that are important in chemistry and a multitude of industrial applications.  The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has driven unprecedented technological transformations in information, new energies, and advanced materials, coupled to a surge in metal demand. Notably, a growing gap between the demand for palladium and its limited supply was recorded in the last few years. Therefore, enabling technologies that can sustainably drive innovation whilst keeping pace with the 4IR are critical to ensure precious metals can be recaptured for future use. This necessitates the development of new methods to recover PGMs.

The BotCats Lab will close the loop in metal catalysis

Our lab ethos is to embrace sustainability at each stage of our research pipeline to redesign metal catalysis. Supported by a Sustainable Laboratories Grant by the Royal Society of Chemistry, The BotCats Lab has successfully developed metal recovery devices that can selectively chelate platinum group metals across common organic and green solvents. We are currently carrying out user survey towards the ultimate goals of establishing new collaborations to evaluate metal recovery compatibility of our devices using real-life laboratory samples.

Are you interested in sustainable use of platinum group metal in your laboratory synthesis?

Please get in touch with Shiao [email] if you’re interested to collaborate, or to test out our metal recovery system to support your PGM synthesis workflow.