News

Prof. Dr. Christoph Helbig, Professor of Ecological Resource Technology at the University of Bayreuth and member of BayBatt, has been honored by the International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE) for outstanding achievements in industrial ecology.

Christoph Helbig "has been an active member of ISIE since 2015 and has contributed significantly to the society's activities", writes the organization. The ISIE award committee is "deeply impressed" by Helbig's "outstanding scientific contributions", which includes works on the criticality of raw materials, geopolitical risks and dissipative losses in Life Cycle Impact Assessments.

The award is named after Robert Laudise, a pioneer in the growth of quartz crystals who served as Director of Materials Research at Bell Labs, among other positions. It is awarded every two years to researchers under 36, Helbig is 34 years old. ISIE promotes industrial ecology as a way to tackle the challenges of sustainability and realize a circular economy.

The Chair of Ecological Resource Technology deals with the modelling, simulation and assessment of global material cycles of metals and mineral raw materials. The methodological focus is on material flow analyses, life cycle assessments and raw material criticality evaluations. Particularly relevant for BayBatt are questions about the availability of raw materials for cathode and anode materials and the future development of recycling potentials.

The battery research of Helbig's research group comprises three focal points:

• Modelling and simulation of the raw material requirements for battery production and the secondary raw material potential currently and in the next decades in Germany, Europe and worldwide depending on technology development paths.
• Assessment of the supply risks of battery raw materials and precursors for Europe and European companies on the basis of criticality indicators for material systems
• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with Life Cycle Costing and Social Life Cycle Assessment for batteries in various fields of application, product composition and manufacturing processes, taking Circular Economy measures into account.

Read the full article in UBTaktuell.