Four members of the Waterloo Industrial Ecology Group (WIEG) returned in good cheer from the International Roundtable on Raw Material Criticality (IRTC) Conference 2023, “Raw Materials for a Sustainable Future”, held 15-17 February 2023 in Lille, France. This was the first in-person scholarly conference for SUSM Masters student Jamie Faubert and for SUSM PhD student Ankesh Siddhantakar – and the first since the pandemic for Professors Komal Habib and Steven Young. About 200 academic government and industry participants attended from all over the world to discuss the assessment, development and markets for critical raw materials.

Jamie’s oral presentation titled “Nickel supply: primary metallurgical processing capacity does not satisfy changing demand” was well received, including questions and comments from industry and researchers. As a result, he was invited to submit a version of his paper for consideration in a special issue of the journal Mineral Economics. 

Ankesh’s poster won “best poster award”, which includes paid registration to attend the next IRTC conference in Turin, Italy in 2024. His poster titled “Helium resource sourcing and trade: Critical coproduct, cryogenic complexities” was based on research done under his supervisor Professor Steven Young and with colleagues at the University of Bordeaux and the University of Augsburg. The poster is part of a larger project for Ankesh’s PhD on the sustainability and environmental impacts of helium, an element and raw material that has not been well studied and is critical for modern technology including semiconductor manufacturing and magnetic resonance machines (MRI) used in medical imaging.

A copy of the winning poster is published on the IRTC LinkedIn page.

The first paper presenting Ankesh’s helium research has accepted for publication in a special issue of the journal Resources, Conservation and Recycling.

More research projects and people profiles are provided for the Waterloo Industrial Ecology Group (WIEG).

More information on the Sustainability Management programs is available for the SUSM Masters and the SUSM PhD.