Recycling of raw materials from products and buildings

Specific challenge: Advances in many complex products and buildings, such as energy efficient buildings, electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), (electric) vehicles, airplanes, multi-material packaging solutions, bring to the society benefits in the form of a better performance, reduced transport weight, decreased energy consumption etc. Complex products contain many different raw materials and their reuse, recycling and recovery schemes are also complex and imply different steps, ranging from collection and logistics to refining and purification of materials.

New solutions are needed for the extraction of the raw materials from more complex products and buildings containing a multitude of minerals and metals (including Critical Raw Materials and other technology metals), wood-fibre based materials, polymers and plastics etc.

This specific challenge is identified in the Action area on Recycling of raw materials from products and buildings of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials.

Scope: All proposals should facilitate the market uptake of solutions developed through industrially-driven multidisciplinary consortia. Proposals shall address only one of the following issues of sustainable recycling and recovery of raw materials:

         developing innovative technological solutions, including pre-processing technologies, comprehensive metallurgical recovery and advanced information and communication technologies, for the recovery of minerals and metals (including Critical Raw Materials), polymers and plastics, and wood-fibre based materials from complex end-of-life products;

           developing solutions for a better recovery of raw materials (metals, aggregates, concrete, bricks, plasterboard, glass, polymers and plasctics and wood) from construction and demolition (C&D) waste, particularly from the most promising objects, such as deconstruction of non-residential buildings.

The proposals should develop the solutions proving the concept and feasibility at the level of Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) 5-6; please see part G of the General Annex.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 6 and 8 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected impact: In the medium to longer term unlocking a significant volume of various raw materials within EU28 through conversion of wastes or raw materials not currently exploited into valuable resources. In the shorter term measurable increase in the efficiency of exploitation of secondary raw materials’ deposits ('urban mines') against the state of the art. Increased range and yields of recovered materials and energy efficiency, reduced environmental footprint measured by qualitative and quantitative indicators. Contribution to achieving the objectives of the EIP on Raw Materials.

Type of action:Research and innovation actions