Among Professor Lundström’s innovations is a patented electrochemical method for recovering extremely low concentrations of metals from ores and recycled materials.
The Royal Society of Chemistry presented the Faraday Medal in Electrochemistry to Mari Lundström , Professor of Hydrometallurgy at Aalto University, in York (UK) on 24 August.
The international honour acknowledges Professor Lundström’s pioneering work in hydrometallurgy and sustainable electrochemical processes for critical raw material recovery and recycling.
‘As the world must transition towards a more circular economy, growing demand for metals means that increasingly lower-grade and more impure raw materials must be processed,’ says Lundström, whose research is based in Finland. ‘The development of new electrometallurgical methods can decrease chemical dependency while directly enabling the use of green electricity in critical materials recovery.’
One of Professor Lundström’s most significant innovations is the Electrodeposition-Redox Replacement (EDRR) technique, used to recover precious materials like gold, silver and platinum at concentrations well below those of conventional separation methods, and without the need for volatile chemicals. In 2022, Lundström co-founded Elmery, a spin-out company commercialising the technology and continuing its development with industrial partners around the world.
‘Metal production will always have environmental impacts, and our responsibility is to make it as sustainable as possible rather than shifting the processing – and its consequences – to someone else's backyard,’ says Lundström
The prestigious Faraday Medal recognises a mid-career researcher working outside the UK and Ireland for outstanding contributions to research and innovation in electrochemistry. The honour is named after self-taught English physicist and chemist Michael Faraday (1791–1867), who discovered the societally transformative principles of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis.
Mari Lundström is the first Finnish researcher to receive the Faraday Medal, with previous recipients including Millennium Technology Prize winners and scientists who supervised future Nobel laureates.
‘I’m delighted to receive this honour, which serves as acknowledgement of how important developments in this field are. Without new research and expertise, we simply won't have enough metals to support the green transition,’ says Lundström.
More information on Lundström’s research and its importance to a competitive EU green transition can be found on Aalto University’s webpages .