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.
Fields of science
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-IA - HORIZON Innovation ActionsCoordinator
75175 Pforzheim
Germany
See on map
Participants (17)
70599 Stuttgart
See on map
1000 Ljubljana
See on map
2311 EZ Leiden
See on map
95800 CERGY
See on map
501 15 Boras
See on map
08787 La Pobla De Claramunt
See on map
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
01-210 Warszawa
See on map
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
5280 Idrija
See on map
Legal entity other than a subcontractor which is affiliated or legally linked to a participant. The entity carries out work under the conditions laid down in the Grant Agreement, supplies goods or provides services for the action, but did not sign the Grant Agreement. A third party abides by the rules applicable to its related participant under the Grant Agreement with regard to eligibility of costs and control of expenditure.
5280 Idrija
See on map
Legal entity other than a subcontractor which is affiliated or legally linked to a participant. The entity carries out work under the conditions laid down in the Grant Agreement, supplies goods or provides services for the action, but did not sign the Grant Agreement. A third party abides by the rules applicable to its related participant under the Grant Agreement with regard to eligibility of costs and control of expenditure.
5280 Idrija
See on map
2595 AN Den Haag
See on map
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
09599 Freiberg
See on map
75175 Pforzheim
See on map
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
3500 Krems
See on map
2628 CN Delft
See on map
69326 Lyon Cedex 3
See on map
3000 Leuven
See on map
Partners (2)
Partner organisations contribute to the implementation of the action, but do not sign the Grant Agreement.
B15 2TT Birmingham
See on map
Partner organisations contribute to the implementation of the action, but do not sign the Grant Agreement.
B25 8DW BIRMINGHAM
See on map
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.