Kerstin Forsberg

Kerstin Forsberg is professor in chemical engineering with expertise in separation processes, in particular crystallization. The knowledge is often applied in projects concerning recovery of resources from waste streams (e.g. spent batteries, pickling acid, red mud) or to investigate phenomena connected to the transport of pollutants (e.g. mobility of radionuclides).

Commissions of trust

• Chair, Hydrometallurgy and Electrometallurgy Committee, TMS, 2023.03 – 2025.03
• Deputy director, KTH Industrial Transformation Platform, 2019.05 – 2024.06
• Director for the strategic partnership between KTH and IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, 2022.07 –

News

We currently advertise for 2 postdoctoral researcher positions in industrial crystallization for 2 newly granted projects, that will start in 2024, connected to battery recycling and recovery of critical raw materials. (LINK)

Check our special issue in Metals: Raw Material Supply for Lithium-Ion Batteries in the Circular Economy. (LINK)

Save the date for the Transformation day 2023: Industry transforms – towards circular economy, on October 19th, 2023. (LINK)

Looking forward to giving a talk at the Particle Engineering Days, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway, December 4- 5, 2023.

Looking forward to giving an invited talk "Crystallization process design for control of metal salt purity, size and morphology" at the Royal Society Scientific discussion meeting Sustainable metals: science and systems in London, February 5- 6, 2024. (LINK)

Happy to attend and organize the Rare Metal Extraction & Processing symposium at TMS in Orlando, March 3- 7, 2024. (LINK)

Happy to take part in the advisory committee for the International Conference on Sustainable Nanomaterials Integration & Organization for Energy and Environment ISNIOE2 in Delhi NCR, India, March 20- 23, 2024. (LINK)

Happy to take part in the scientific committee for the 3rd edition of Academia Stands for the Green Deal conference  in Nancy, France, May 29- 30, 2024. (LINK)

Looking forward to delivering a keynote speech at Hydrometallurgy 2024, organized by The Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Stellenbosch, South Africa, September 1- 3rd, 2024. (LINK)

Happy to take part in the advisory committee for the 6th International ATALANTE conference on Nuclear Chemistry for Sustainable Fuel Cycles in Avignon, France, September 1- 6, 2024. (LINK)

Why is Swedish rare earth metals interesting only now? I was happy to discuss the topic in a podcast hosted by Sofie Pehrsson at SSF, June 2023. (LINK)

Check our new anthology on energy "Towards the energy of the future" released July 14th, 2022. A popular science book co-created by researchers from the KTH Energy Platform to share views on challenges and possibilities for the future energy system. (LINK)

The 28th International Workshop on Industrial Crystallization (BIWIC) was held in Stockholm, August 30- Sept. 1, 2023. (LINK) Thanks to all participants for excellent talks and discussions and hope to meet you soon again!

Projects

Project leader (at KTH)

MSA-based circular hydrometallurgy for sustainable, cost-effective production of NMC cathode materials (CICERO), (GA signing in progress), Horizon Europe, 2023.11- 2027.11.

Green Recycling of Battery Materials, STEM, 2023.01- 2023.12.

Selective Vanadium recovery from ALumina Refinery (VALORE), EIT Raw Materials, 2022.01- 2024.12.

Scaling up Scandium production from European Bauxite Residues (SCALE-Up), EIT Raw Materials, 2022.01- 2024.12.

Antisolvent precipitation to extract the value from end-of-life Nd-Fe-B magnets (ANTISOLVO), ERA-MIN2, 2021.01- 2023.12.

Raw Matter ambassadors at schools 4.0, RM@Schools 4.0, EIT Raw Materials, 2021.01- 2023.12.

Green Recycling of Battery Materials by Deep Eutectic Solvents, STEM, 2020.08- 2024.12.

Eutectic Freeze Crystallization for Recovery of Pure Salts and Water, Formas, 2021.01- 2023.12.

New Crystallization Methods for Resource Recovery, collaboration with University of Cape Town (PI Prof. Alison Lewis), STINT, 2020.01- 2024.12.

In collaboration

Upscaling tools for energy efficient recovery of Ni, Co and Mn recovery from battery electrodes, STEM, 2023.09 - 2026-04. (Christophe Duwig)

Sorption of Se, Mo and Tc to cement under reducing conditions, SKB, 2023.09- 2025.12. (Mats Jonsson)

Controlled crystallization of rare earth elements from deep eutectic solvents for recycling of permanent magnets, Formas, 2023.01- 2025.12. (Michael Svärd)

Sustainable REE, Co-Ni supply from magnet recycling: closing the loop (DysCovery), EIT Raw Materials, 2022.01- 2024.12. (Michael Svärd)

Selected academic assignments

• Examination committee member/ opponent for PhD defenses at:
  Monash University (Australia), University of Queensland (Australia), University of Toronto (Canada), Cairo University (Egypt), Aalto University (Finland), Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT (Finland), University of Lorraine (France), RWTH Aachen (Germany), Indian Institute of Technology IIT (Indian School of Mines) in Dhanbad (India), Indian Institute of Technology IIT in Roorkee (India), Norwegian University of Science and Technology NTNU (Norway), University of Oslo (Norway), Stellenbosch University (South Africa), University of Cape Town (South Africa), Chalmers University (Sweden), KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Luleå University of Technology (Sweden), Lund University (Sweden), Uppsala University (Sweden).

• Member of the organising committee:
  The symposium Rare Metal Extraction & Processing in USA at TMS 2024 (Orlando), TMS 2023 (San Diego), TMS 2022 (Anaheim), TMS 2021 (on-line), TMS 2020 (San Diego), the 28th International Workshop on Industrial Crystallization, BIWIC 2023 (Stockholm) and the Recovering the Unrecoverable Symposium as part of REWAS 2022 (Anaheim).

• Member of the scientific committee:
  The 29th International Workshop on Industrial Crystallization, BIWIC 2024 (Delft), the Green Deal Conference 2024, (Nancy), BIWIC 2023 (Stockholm),the International Conference on Raw Materials and Circular Economy, RawMat 2023 (Athens), BIWIC 2022 (Espoo), RawMat 2021 (Athens), and the 3rd European Rare Earth Resource conference ERES 2020 (online).

• Member of advisory committee:
  The International Conference on Sustainable Nanomaterials Integration and Organization for Energy and Environment, iSNIOE2 2024, (Delhi NCR). The ATALANTE2024 conference (Avignon).