SUPREEMO aims to establish the first pre-commercial Rare Earth Elements (REEs) production value chain (TRL7) using European (EU) primary resources as feedstock, developing sustainable, cost-competitive processing, refining and Rare Earth (RE) Permanent Magnet (PM) production technologies in a responsible way complying with local and international safety regulations. This will contribute in securing REE materials supply for the EU industry and strategic sectors which depends 100 % on Chinese imports. The largest end-user of REEs is the PMs industry, that contain neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium as key elements to produce high energy-efficient motors, which are vital for electric mobility and renewable energy technologies. SUPREEMO will exploit the European primary resources from two major EU sites: Fen deposit Norway (largest carbonatite deposit in EU) with >200 Mtonne grading 1.2-1.5 % Total Rare Earth Oxides and secondly, exploring extraction technologies related to deposits from uranium extraction in the Czech Republic, technologies which is also intended for implementation in direct extraction during uranium beneficiation related to nuclear energy supply chains. SUPREEMO will capitalise on technologies demonstrated in previous projects to develop innovative, environmentally friendly, socially and economically sustainable REEs processing technologies. During phase 1, the partners will optimise the stand alone technologies to elucidate the final integrated process flowsheet with the best processing parameters in phase 2, guided by LCA and LCCA. This will be validated at the piloting activities in phase 3. Finally, the production of 50-100 kg of REO at similar cost to commercial value from Chinese production will be demonstrated at TRL7 by processing ~ 10 tonnes of ores, and the production of Rare Earth Alloy for the manufacturing of 50 kg PMs. Results will be communicated and disseminated to key stakeholders and a concrete first business plan will be set to attract more investors and stimulate a competitive, resilient and sustainable REEs production value chain ready for full-scale deployment in the EU market.

The REE4EU project will develop, validate and demonstrate in 2 industrially relevant Pilots an innovative Rare Earth Alloys (REA) production route from Permanent Magnets (PM) and Secondary Batteries (SB) waste. Currently only 1% of RE waste is being recovered as no adequate process is available, so proof-of-concept in REE4EU will open-up a fully new route bringing recovery of 90% of in-process wastes from PM manufacturing within reach. The targeted integrated solution is based on recently developed lab-proven technologies for direct high-temperature electrolyses of REA production. It will be combined in the pilots with an innovative and proven Ionic Liquid Extraction or tailored hydrometallurgical pre-treatment to demonstrate dramatic improvements in cost and environmental performance compared to state of the art technologies. This includes avoidance of process steps (pure RE extraction and reprocessing), 50% energy savings, and 100% recycling of ionic liquids as opposed to disposal of strong acid leeching agents in state of the art pre-treatment steps. The project involves in its consortium the full value chain including (SME and large) RE metal producers, PM manufacturer, SME process engineering companies and LCA experts, (SME and large) electronics and battery recycling companies, SME technology transfer, innovation specialists as well as chemical and end-user associations. Together with 4 top research institutes on electrolyses, ionic liquids and RE recycling, they will prove technical and economic viability on in-process PM waste (swarf), as well as End-of-Life (EoL) PM and SB waste, develop urgently required market data on EoL RE availability and a triple value-chain business case for a new European secondary Rare Earth Alloys (REA) production sector, creating new jobs, increasing Europe’s independence from imports and providing valuable raw materials for fast growing European green-technology industries such as Electrical/Hybrid vehicles and Wind Turbines.

Europe's ambitious energy and climate goals are heavily dependent on critical raw materials such as Rare Earth Elements (REEs). The largest end-user of REEs is the permanent magnet (PM) industry for electric mobility and renewable energy technologies. The growth in those strategic sectors till 2050 is expected to increase the demand of Neodymium (Nd) and Dysprosium (Dy) by ~4 and ~12 times, respectively. However, Europe depends 100% on REEs imports and there are no market-ready substitutes. Despite the fact that significant amounts of EoL products containing REE-based PMs are collected in Europe, the current recycling processes do not allow PMs recovery, and therefore they are lost downstream. To face this challenge, the REEPRODUCE project aims at setting up, for the first time, a resilient and complete European REEs-recycling value chain, at industrial scale for the recovery of REEs at competitive cost compared to REEs primary production in China (at least 25% cheaper) with environmentally friendly and socially sustainable technologies. REEPRODUCE will capitalize on the knowledge generated in previous projects and aim to solve all remaining technical challenges along the value chain to construct pilots able to produce 70 t of PMs per year from variety of EoL products bearing Nd-based PMs. Additionally it will demonstrate the conversion of PMs extracted from many different EoL products into high purity Rare Earth Elements Oxide (REO)-mixtures and Rare Earth Elements Alloy (REA) that will be used in the manufacturing of new PMs with performances similar to those manufactured with virgin REEs-intensive materials. This project is formed by key partners covering the whole value chain, including EoL products recyclers, metal recyclers, manufacturers of equipment for recycling, producers of REEs-intensive material and PMs, developers of technologies successfully proven in previous projects, and experts in dissemination, communication and exploitation.

The FIREFLY project rises to the sustainable evolution of the catalyst-based chemical industry, towards its electrification and reduced third-party dependence on metals and fossil energy. The controversial sustainability challenges and opportunities in catalysts recycling/production and catalyzed chemical processes motivated the synergy of 16 partners proposing the FIREFLY concept, relying on the development of: i) Electro-driven technologies for metal recycling from spent, waste, and off-specification catalysts available in Europeincluding a modelling, optimization, and engineering approach; ii) Efficient integration of renewable electricity; iii) A digital tool for predictive decision-making; iv) Production of (electro)catalysts for innovative (electro)chemical processes that overcome traditional production associated with high operating conditions, greenhouse gas emissions, and lack of circularity. The 48-month project foresees 3 stages: i) The technologies involved in the concept will be developed to TRL4, accompanied by an integrated sustainability assessment that will support the selection of the most promising technology routes based on their environmental and techno-economic performance. ii) The selected flowsheets will form the FIREFLY process, in a small-scale pilot. They will be demonstrated at TRL6 in the predictive, RES powered, and flexible production of new metal-based (electro)catalysts from secondary resources as well as in the application of these outputs in innovative (electro)chemical processes of selected chemicals: ammonia and hydrogen peroxide (with current environmental and operational concerns), depolymerization of lignin and biomass processing for bio-based chemicals (in support of defossilization of the chemical industry). iii) The activities and results will be effectively communicated, disseminated, and exploited to a wide set of stakeholders.