General information

Sustainable management of material and energy resources implies that, in a long term, renewable energies will be used to drive closed material cycles. The mission of the LEM laboratory is to research and develop technologies for providing primary energy and material products from waste and/or renewable resources. Improving the eco-efficiency of products and services (i.e. more value for less pollution and less resource intensity) has been the guiding principle of the research projects of LEM.

In particular we focus

On the thermal processing of waste materials with special emphasis on the separation of valuable and/or toxic metal fractions from mineral materials. The goals of this focus is to increase the recycling rate of waste products by eco-efficient processes. (Waste & Recycling)

On the processing of fuels (e.g. methanol, gasoline, natural gas) for optimum eco-efficiency of the total fuel chain, e.g. fuel processing for the production of hydrogen for mobile and stationary fuel cells.

On the development of efficient conversion technologies for renewable primary fuels (e.g. biomass) to clean-burning secondary fuels (clean producer gas, hydrogen, etc) via thermochemical gasification and advanced gas clean-up technologies. (Ecogas)

Our four groups are

Chemical Processes & Materials	Catalytic Process Engineering	Thermal Process Engineering	In situ X-ray Spectroscopy

Our postal address:

Laboratory for Energy and Materials Cycles (LEM)
CH-5232 Villigen PSI
Switzerland