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
• Editor, Sustainable Materials and Technologies, SM&T, 2023.12 – 2026.12
• Director for the strategic partnership between KTH and IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, 2022.07 –
• KTH CBH school docent committee, 2022.05 – 2024.12

News

I am advertising for a new PhD position: LINK

Happy to serve as guest editor for a special issue connected to iSNIOE2 2024 in Advanced Sustainable Systems and ChemSusChem, Wiley

Happy to attend and organize the Rare Metal Extraction & Processing symposium at TMS in Las Vegas, March 23- 27, 2025. (LINK)

Happy to attend and organize Innovative Hydrometallurgical Technologies for Environmentally Benign Processing and Remediation: An EPD Symposium Honoring Fiona Doyle at TMS in Las Vegas, March 23- 27, 2025. (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)

Crystallization in Closed Loop Recycling of Battery Materials, WISE, 2025- 2030, PhD student to be recruited.
Please find the advertisement here: LINK

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

Eutectic freeze crystallization in battery recycling, Formas, STEM and KTH, 2020.08- 2026.12.

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.

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

New Crystallization Methods for Resource Recovery, collaboration with University of Cape Town (PI Prof. Alison Lewis), STINT, 2020.01- 2025.12.

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, 2023.12- 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 Toulouse (France), 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), University of Iceland (Iceland), 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), Stockholm Univeristy (Sweden), Uppsala University (Sweden).

• Member of the organising committee:
  Responsible Lithium Production for Energy Transition and Electric Mobility RELiTE 2024 (Jujuy, Argentina), the Rare Metal Extraction & Processing symposium 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 British Association for Crystal Growth's Annual Conference, BACG 2024, (Loughborough), 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 International Conference on Science, Technology and Applications of Rare Earths ICSTAR 2024 (India), the ATALANTE2024 conference (Avignon).