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CORDIS

CIRCULAR ECOLOGICAL ESSENTIAL & CRITICAL RAW MATERIALS

Project description

Setting sights on sustainable mining

People and businesses benefit from the extraction and processing of minerals, but these activities impact surrounding communities and the environment. Targeting sustainable mining, the EU-funded ROTATE project will develop tools and technologies for companies to use and achieve zero emissions and pollution when they collect essential and critical raw materials. ROTATE will also establish waste valorisation processes to ensure a circular approach, particularly in waste reuse and secondary product recovery. The work achieved will result in an optimised cut-off grade, which is the minimum grade required for minerals or metals to be economically mined, and a smaller environmental footprint. ROTATE’s innovative methods and technologies will benefit companies and boost access to critical raw materials sites.

Objective

ROTATE's ambition is to tap the full potential of minerals extraction and processing in a sustainable and ecological way, developing the needed technologies and tools for achieving zero emissions and pollution for essential and critical raw materials obtention and ensuring a circular approach by implementing mechanisms for waste valorisation in the context of industrial symbiosis, especially reusing waste as aggregates for the construction sector and also recovering secondary products.
ROTATE'S GENERAL OBJECTIVE is to achieve a near zero emissions and pollution obtention of raw materials, providing new tools for the mining industry in its journey to a more sustainable and green mineral extraction. The solutions proposed in the project will allow to improve the cut-off grade while reducing the environmental footprint of the whole process. The pilot demonstrations in mineral deposits with different paragenetic (minerals occurring together in a rock, formed by the same genetic process during the same stage) profiles will ensure the replication of the technologies to a wide variety of mining sites.
To ensure EU?s lead on Critical Raw Materials access, the project is structured in three main interconnected PILLARS providing technical solutions and three transversal FLOORS covering cross cutting issues, including clustering and social acceptance. A series of technical Project Results of Pillars [PRP] and Project Results of Floors [PRF] will be delivered within the ROTATE's framework.
ROTATE's will deliver specific methods and/or technologies aiming to overcome the reluctance of social agents to the exploitation of CRM deposits thanks to the environmental impact reduction achieved. This will result in an increase of the CRM sites that could be exploited in a future, boosting the access of EU to strategic CRM and enabling the development of the Renewables, e-mobility and Defence & Space sectors.

Coordinator

ASOCIACION NACIONAL DE EMPRESARIOS FABRICANTES DE ARIDOS
Net EU contribution
€ 1 181 062,00
Address
Plaza de las Cortes nº 5, 7º A
28014 Madrid
Spain

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Comunidad de Madrid Comunidad de Madrid Madrid
Activity type
Other
Links
Total cost
€ 1 181 062,50

Participants (20)

Partners (1)