Rare earths “are not uncommon, the only challenge is to separate them”: a new medium of extraction, patented by the Franco -American Chemistry Marie Perrin, earned him one of the 10 “young inventors of the year” granted on Tuesday by the European Patent Office (OEB). Born in Houston in Texas of French parents, the young doctor in Chemistry of 28 years, who studied in Toulouse, Paris, Boston and Zurich, is launching a new company called “Recoover”, in an attempt to industrialize the fruit of his research.
In the acceleration fund of the global race through rare earths and strategic metals controlled by more than 70% by China, the young scientist has developed a technology considered “faster, cleaner and more lasting” than the existing methods, in particular to recover the Europium, one of the 17 rare lands officially listed, the OEB indicates, based in Munich. This element, known for its luminescent properties, is used in all types of LED screens, but also in the manufacture of tickets in euros.
Go and look directly in waste
According to Harvard’s international review, rare earth extraction and treatment can cause up to 2,000 tons of toxic waste for each ton of rare earths extracted. Marie Perrin has chosen to look for Europio where there are concentrations “up to twenty times higher than those contained in natural minerals”: in waste such as fluorescent lamps of low consumption or neon tubes.
Its innovation to recover the Europium selectively is based on the interaction between broken lamp powders, containing rare and small bio -signed molecules that contain sulfur in solution. “After a few hours, we observe the formation of a solid, which must be quantified” is Europium. “This process works very well,” she says. Until now, “we prefer to extract rare earth thanks to its interactions with oxygen,” explains that the young woman whose process allows “molecules to be separated” in one step “, which allows to reduce chemical waste and, therefore, the contamination generated by recycling, as well as energy consumption.
Global tensions mounted
To establish its implementation, the young entrepreneur, who defended his thesis in November 2024, has associated with his best friend of chemical preparatory class, which became a specialist in finance and his former thesis supervisor at the Federal Polytechnic School of Zurich (ETH), Victor Mougel. The increase in tensions on the attraction of rare earths and strategic metals, as well as the media coverage of the subject, is “good news,” he judges.
Rare earths are not uncommon, “they are present throughout the earth’s crust, on the other hand, they are difficult to isolate: it took a hundred years to separate them, isolate them and characterize them correctly,” he explains. “That is why they were named strange.” The name of Marie Perrin is part of the list of 10 young winning researchers of the OEB Prix made public on Tuesday, selected in 450 files worldwide. The list of the first three will be announced on June 18 in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Source: BFM TV
