The EU Green Deal’s climate-neutrality and digitalization goals for 2030 and 2050 necessitate substantial consumption of critical raw materials (CRMs). The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict have heightened the urgency to secure these materials, which are vital due to their economic importance and the associated risks in the global market. The demand for lithium and cobalt, used in electric vehicle batteries and energy storage, is expected to surge by 60 and 15 times respectively by 2050. Similarly, the need for rare earth elements in permanent magnets is projected to increase tenfold by 2050. With many CRMs sourced from outside the EU, there is fierce competition for supply, driven by geopolitical and economic challenges. To mitigate this external dependency, the EU's Action Plan for CRMs and COVID-19 Recovery Plan emphasize the need for new, sustainable supply channels within Europe, focusing on both primary and secondary sources and circular economy strategies. However, challenges such as technical innovation, investment, and social awareness must be addressed, alongside fostering alliances across the value chain. There is also a critical lack of information on the availability of raw materials in existing mineral deposits, extractive wastes, and products, hindering new project development.
METALLICO aims to reduce dependency on volatile external markets for CRMs by tackling these cross-cutting barriers. The project will develop a digital platform that includes an inventory of primary and secondary sources and digital twins of novel metal production and recovery processes. These digital twins will be informed by operational data from innovative, cost-effective, and sustainable metal production and recovery trains, demonstrated at a relevant industrial scale (TRL6-7) and validated across diverse EU-based sources. This approach will facilitate market uptake and reduce Europe’s reliance on imports from third countries.
