Rare earth elements and rare magnets play a crucial role in advancing the green energy transition and achieving the goals of the European Green Deal. While the EU currently relies heavily on imports from a few countries— with approximately 90% of REEs coming from outside the EU—this presents an opportunity to develop.
As demand for REEs increases, driven by their use in electric vehicles, wind turbine motors, and electrolysers for clean hydrogen, there is a tremendous opportunity to enhance recycling efforts and establish more sustainable extraction processes within the EU.
The project aims to develop the entire rare earth value chain, from the leaching of rare earths from waste and by-product streams to commercial exploitation and production of new magnets.
The project will commence at the beginning of October and last for four years. The project consortium consists of 24 partners from six countries: Finland, Estonia, Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, and Italy. The project preparation and consortium coordination were led by the Finnish organization CLIC Innovation, which also serves as the project coordinator.
The estimated total volume of the project is 18 million euros, of which 16 million euros is EU funding. The EU Horizon "resilient value chains" funding instrument supports European sustainable development value chain projects with financing from the European Commission.
In addition to Timo Repo, the research team at the University of Helsinki includes Dr Anže Zupanc and Risto Koivula, who have previously developed environmentally friendly methods for the recycling of rare earth metals and the leaching of precious metals.