News
From mining to recycling. The R&I journey of battery raw materials in EU: Proceedings from the Hub’s annual workshop 2024
17/02/2025
On 12 December 2024, the third edition of the annual workshop of the Cluster Hub “Production of Raw Materials for Batteries from European Resources” took place in Brussels, being co-organised by EU-funded projects RHINOCEROS, CRM-geothermal and CICERO. This third edition, along with an increasing number membership, confirm the hub’s role as a dynamic ecosystem that continues to generate innovations in the European battery materials sector.
The hub’s annual workshop, held as a satellite event of the Raw Materials Week 2024, provided once again a platform for presenting the most promising results from participating projects. Two technical sessions covered the entire battery value chain, from raw materials mining to recycling, while the opening conveniently portrayed the policy, the regulatory and strategic frameworks that support and drive the EU R&I initiatives in the battery sector.
Policy perspectives and supporting mechanisms for the battery sector
Susana Xara, Project adviser on raw materials at European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA), established the discussions tone, navigating through the insights of the Critical Raw Materials Act [CRMA] and the Net Zero Industry Act [NZIA] and focusing on their contribution to securing a sustainable supply of critical raw materials for the European battery industry.
Wouter IJzermans, BEPA Executive Director, presented the long-term vision and potential revisions of their roadmap, emphasising the importance of policy frameworks and incentives in promoting battery innovation and deployment across Europe.
The presentation of Vasileios Rizos from the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) identified various barriers and challenges emerging from the EU policy framework on batteries, based on inputs from 20 companies across the entire battery value chain, including partners from the BATRAW project, member of the Cluster Hub since 2022. The representative of CEPS concluded with a set of policy messages referring to early dialogue channels established between policy-makers and various stakeholders. Before the legal requirements entry into force, this information exchange on availability of secondary data sets could enable stakeholders to assess the data quality, select suitable sets of information and identify potential data gaps.
Publicly available resources submitted by CEPS:
- Barriers and policy challenges in developing circularity approaches in the EU battery sector: an assessment – CEPS
- Implementing the EU digital battery passport – CEPS
- Compliance with the EU’s carbon footprint requirements for electric vehicle batteries – CEPS
Orchestrating the launch and on-going work of the Cluster Hub, PNO Innovation Belgium [part of PNO Group – leader in innovation and funding consultancy], represented by Dr. Nader Akil, concluded the first session with an overview of all EU funding programmes supporting research, innovation and investment in raw materials production for batteries. Additional to the upcoming funding opportunities and guidance on selecting the appropriate funding opportunities based on the status of technology, Dr. Nader Akil introduced another initiative launched by PNO Group – DIAMONDS4IF. This project supports the preparation of Innovation Fund applications, enabling the transfer of H2020 research results into successful ventures and securing investment funding.
Download Funding Schemes presentation
The third session of presentations commenced with an outline of the main findings of the LIFE DRONE project, which concluded in June 2024. Presented by Lorenzo Toro, process engineer at Eco Recycling, the project demonstrated the feasibility of producing high-quality NMC oxide and graphite from recycled batteries. The innovative process confirmed significant environmental benefits, with a reduction of 59 % in terms of kg CO2 eq. Additionally, one plant is estimated to treat 500 tonnes of batteries/year. The technical-economic evaluation of this industrial plant, with a potential capacity of 500 tons/year, showed a return on investment (ROI) of 31.64 % and a payback time (PBT) of 3.16 years. The analysis indicated that attractive payback times could be obtained even with varying prices for NMC and graphite.
Download LIFE DRONE presentation
RHINOCEROS presenting results of the Electrochemical Li recovery strategy from LIBs black mass
The electrochemical Li recovery from Li-ion battery black mass, investigated in the RHINOCEROS project and presented by Prof. Pier Giorgio Schiavi from Univ. of Sapienza reported Li extraction yields from end-of-life (EoL) LIBs in the range of 82 %, and faradaic efficiency compared to commercial cathode materials (close to 100 %). Researchers have investigated potential causes that could explain the relatively low selectivity ranges of Li and other metals available in black mass. The simultaneous oxidation of impurities found in the black mass can be a justified explanation for the preliminary results obtained. Experimental results show that the extraction percentages for Co, Ni, and Mn remain in very low ranges. When contemplating upscaling scenarios, Prof. Schiavi mentioned the researchers are evaluating an alternative approach that enables the treatment of larger quantities of powder without replicating the manufacturing process of LIB electrodes.
Download RHINOCEROS presentation
The session featured also presentations of other initiatives addressing the batteries recycling topic: Benjamin P. Wilson, Senior Scientist, Hydrometallurgy and Corrosion at Aalto University on behalf of the RESPECT project, Miguel Aguilar, researcher at LEITAT Technological Centre for the BATRAW projects, and Joana Gouveia [Researcher at the Institute of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Management (INEGI) and America Quinteros [Researcher at LUT Univ.] for the ReLiEF initiative.
