WP1 organized three workshops where the various phases of the work were presented and discussed among stakeholders. Main results obtained showed the difficulties in collecting/estimating reliable figures on EU value chains of the selected refractory metals and that the mass balance of EU value were mainly determined by economic factors.
WP2 - The map of the primary resources of 5 refractory metals in EU including resource types, reserves, and geological mineralogy and chemistry is provided. The situations of existing mining, mineral processing, and metallurgical technologies are described and evaluated. The innovative potentials are then studied to efficiently recover the refractory metals and minimise waste amount. Currently, only tungsten in the minerals of scheelite and wolframite is found to be mined in Europe.
WP3 - The map of the secondary resources of five refractory metals in EU including resource types, reserves, estimated amounts and chemistry is provided. The situations of existing processing and metallurgical technologies are described and evaluated. The innovative technologies are then studied to efficiently recover the refractory metals from secondary resources and minimise the number of residues. Currently, secondary resources of tungsten are found recovered to high extent.
WP4 - In the studies a wide range of applications was analysed to determine potential sources of refractory metals in the end-of-life products. Individual factors which have influence on the collection rate and on extraction of refractory metals from the end-of-life waste were determined
WP5 objective was to discuss and analyse substitution potential for RM within their most relevant applications in EU industry. Substitution has been considered as another alternative for managing the refractory material supply chain together primary supply and recycling. Refractory metal substitutability: for Tungsten consumption continues to increase as if the amount of carbide tool production increases with the expansion of markets in developing countries. TiC and TiN would be potential substitutes but the technology or manufacturing cost is not competitive now, due to the large market volumes of the WC/Co. Tantalum substitutability in capacitors and carbides is quite simple and economical, Niobium’ one is possible depending on the applications it is used for, Molybdenum’s one in present applications is rather low, while Rhenium, can be designed with closer tolerances, operating at higher temperatures, with prolonged engine life and increased engine performance and operating efficiency.
WP6 - The objective was to gather all the knowledge existing or generated in the project and produce tools and documents to make this information accessible to public by the ECCP MSP-REFRAM platform, a knowledge management web application that helped to create the multi stakeholder platform, to review, tag and index the deliverables and to produce a set of documents aimed to a general public.
WP7 - The main EU Regions with potential to work on refractory metals have been identified through their Smart Specialisation Strategies and its interest in mine through 3 criteria (R&I capabilities, Business areas & target market and EU priority). A common meeting with targeted regions was celebrated during the Conference «European Regions in the Critical Raw Materials Strategy and the Circular Economy». Reproducibility and transferability to other Critical Raw Materials of MSP-REFRAM model has been analysed thought the Tungsten model. After a deep analysis of the list of Critical Raw Materials, four of them have been proposed for replicability and transferability.
