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Resilient and sustainable critical raw materials REE supply chains for the e-mobility and renewable energy ecosystems and strategic sectors

Project description

Less EU dependence on critical rare earth materials

Rare earth (RE) elements are critical raw materials for e-mobility, renewable energy and further strategic sectors. However, the EU27 is import-dependent along the entire value chain of RE magnet materials, with China maintaining the monopoly. The EU-funded REESilience project will categorise RE elements according to geographic location, quantity, chemical composition, ethical and sustainable indicators, ramp-up scenarios and pricing, considering all value streams from virgin to secondary materials. The project will build a production system to ensure a resilient and sustainable supply chain for RE elements in Europe with less dependency on non-European economies. REESilience will develop a software tool to determine optimum mixing ratios to ensure consistently high product quality with maximum secondary materials for high-tech applications.

Objective

Rare Earths (RE) are crucial materials for Europe's successful green and digital transition, thus classified as highly critical. The market for RE magnets itself is relatively small - about €6.5 billion - however its downstream leverage is enormous: the mobility business in the EU27 alone is expected to grow to about €500 billion by 2030, with 6 million jobs.

While being a world leader in the manufacturing of e.g. electric motors, the EU27 is fully import-dependent along the entire value chain of RE magnet materials. Despite a growing market, European magnet production capacity is underutilised and tends to serve specialised niche applications. In addition, RE magnets are increasingly imported as part of motors and generator assemblies and products. The main reasons for these developments are that China has a monopoly in the RE supply chain across all stages from mining to refining.

To overcome this issue, REEsilience will categorise RE for geographic locations, quantities, chemical composition, ethical and sustainable indicators, ramp-up scenarios, and pricing, considering all value streams from virgin to secondary material. It will build a production system that ensures a resilient and sustainable supply chain for RE as critical raw materials for the e-mobility, renewable energy and further strategic sectors in Europe with less dependencies on non-European economies. A newly-developed software tool will determine optimum mixing ratios to ensure consistently high product quality with maximum secondary materials for high-tech applications. Combined with new and improved technologies for alloy production and powder preparation, especially of secondary materials, the yield and stability of processes will be further enhanced, allowing further augmentation of the proportion of secondary materials in RE PM production, reducing at the same time waste, environmental damage, and consumption of energy linked with virgin production.

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Topic(s)

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HORIZON-IA - HORIZON Innovation Actions

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) HORIZON-CL4-2021-RESILIENCE-01

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Coordinator

HOCHSCHULE PFORZHEIM
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 2 561 000,00
Address
TIEFENBRONNER STRASSE 65
75175 Pforzheim
Germany

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Region
Baden-Württemberg Karlsruhe Pforzheim, Stadtkreis
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 2 561 000,00

Participants (17)

Partners (2)

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