On Monday 12 November 2018, the EU projects NEMO, CROCODILE and ETN DEMETER were presented at the second annual Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) Event. This event offered an opportunity to a variety of stakeholders to get a fresh update about the latest EU activities in the field of Critical Raw Materials. It was co-organised by the European Commission, and the Horizon 2020 project SCRREEN – the European Expert Network on CRMs, together with other EU projects (PW, Leuven, 26/11/2018).
The clustering event took place as part of the third edition of the EU “Raw Materials Week” which was organised from Monday 12 to Friday 16 November 2018 in Brussels. It builds up on a series of events organised by the European Commission addressing the latest news on raw materials in the EU. The Raw Materials week is an annual opportunity for the raw materials community to discuss and exchange on all relevant issues: policy, technology, international cooperation, framework conditions, knowledge base etc.
EU H2020 NEMO
Lieven Machiels (KU Leuven) presented the NEMO project: “The EIT Raw Materials week is a great opportunity to network, to meet colleagues from other projects and to brainstorm on new project ideas. In the 2016 Raw Materials week, we intensively discussed the concepts of what later was to become NEMO. NEMO tries to find an answer to the fact that a lot of (critical) metals are “lost” in mining waste. We take on the challenge to find economically feasible methods to recover these metals.”
EU H2020 CROCODILE
Nader Akil (PNO Consultants) clarified the CROCODILE concept: “The CROCODILE project is designed to drastically reduce the supply risk of cobalt for the European industry, while consolidating the leading position and business of SMEs and large refineries in Europe. We want to showcase innovative metallurgical systems based on advanced pyro-, hydro-, bio-, iono- and electrometallurgy technologies for the recovery of cobalt and the production of cobalt metal and upstream products from a wide variety of secondary and primary European resources.”
EU H2020 MSCA-ETN DEMETER
In the presentation of the DEMETER training network, Early Stage Researcher Gwendolyn Bailey (KU Leuven) pointed out that in order to transition to a low carbon economy “We don’t just need technology… we need life cycle assessments.” The DEMETER project aims at a more sustainable electric vehicle and pleads for a design for reuse or recycling. Finally, Gwen, recently praised as Marie Curie Fellow of the week, happily concluded inviting all to attend the DEMETER Symposium in which the main results of the project will be presented.
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