Recycling technologies for critical raw materials from EoL products (IA)

Closed

Programme Category

EU Competitive Programmes

Programme Name

Horizon Europe (2021-2027)

Programme Description

Horizon Europe is the European Union (EU) funding programme for the period 2021 – 2027, which targets the sectors of research and innovation. The programme’s budget is around € 95.5 billion, of which € 5.4 billion is from NextGenerationEU to stimulate recovery and strengthen the EU’s resilience in the future, and € 4.5 billion is additional aid.

Programme Details

Identifier Code

HORIZON-CL4-2023-RESILIENCE-01-05

Call

Recycling technologies for critical raw materials from EoL products (IA)

Summary

Projects outcomes will enable the increase of access to secondary raw materials, in particular critical raw materials for EU industrial value chains and strategic sectors which will alleviate critical raw materials dependency.
Actions should focus on the whole chain of recycling processes and procedures – from collection, logistics, characterisation, sorting, cleaning, refining and purification of secondary raw materials and quality of produced outputs.

Detailed Call Description

Actions should develop material efficient high-quality recycling and preparation for re-use of one or more of the following end-of-life product categories/key waste streams: waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), end-of-life vehicles, waste windmills and solar PV and machine tools (e.g. hard metal scrap).

Actions should acquire new data on secondary raw materials via in situ sampling from different regions across the EU, collect existing data and present in a harmonised UNFC format (United Nations Framework Classification for Resources) and develop sampling protocols, methodologies, and technologies to quantify and characterise the CRM resources in specific products, urban mines and waste repositories. Actions should envisage clustering activities with other projects aiming at second life, re-use, repurposing, remanufacturing of products and/or components relevant selected projects for cross-projects co-operation, consultations and joint activities on cross-cutting issues and share of results as well as participating in joint meetings and communication events.

Actions should facilitate the market uptake of solutions developed through industrially- and user-driven multidisciplinary consortia covering the relevant value chain and should consider standardisation aspects when relevant. The action should also include the analysis of financial opportunities ensuring the market exploitation and replication of the circular business model behind the developed solutions as new processes, products and/or services.

Actions should clearly demonstrate how they contribute to a decreased level of resource and energy consumption, leading to a lower CO2 footprint.

Proposals submitted under this topic should include a business case and exploitation strategy, as outlined in the introduction to this Destination. For TRLs 6-7, a credible strategy to achieve future full-scale deployment in the EU is expected, indicating the commitments of the industrial partners after the end of the project.

Recycling and re-use where the recycled material is of lower quality and functionality than the original material (downcycling), is not in the scope of the topic.

Call Total Budget

€28,000,000

Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan

70%

EU Contribution: €7,00 million

Thematic Categories

  • Environment and Climate Change
  • Research, Technological Development and Innovation

Eligibility for Participation

  • Large Enterprises
  • Local Authorities
  • Private Bodies
  • Researchers/Research Centers/Institutions
  • Semi-governmental organisations
  • Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
  • State-owned Enterprises

Eligibility For Participation Notes

The following exceptions apply:
To increase EU resilience in raw materials supply chains and thus reduce the serious risk to the Union’s strategic assets, economic and societal interests, autonomy and security associated with the current EU reliance on a few third countries for critical raw materials, by increasing sustainable and responsible sourcing of primary and secondary raw materials necessary to enable the green and digital transition and in alignment with the Communication (2020) 474 on Critical Raw Materials Resilience, participation in this topic is limited to legal entities established in Member States, associated countries, OECD countries, African Union Member States*, MERCOSUR, CARIFORUM, Andean Community and countries with which the EU has concluded strategic partnerships on raw materials. The choice of these countries was made taking into consideration the development of strategic international partnerships on raw materials and avoidance of reinforcing existing over-dependencies, as well as the importance of involving partners committed to pursuing open trade in such materials.

Proposals including legal entities which are not established in the countries that fall under the criteria above will be ineligible.

Any activity aimed at deploying subliminal techniques beyond a person’s consciousness, exploiting any of the vulnerabilities of a specific group of persons and at using emotion recognition systems will be ineligible.
*”African Union member states” includes countries whose membership has been temporarily suspended.

If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used).

Call Opening Date

08/12/2022

Call Closing Date

20/04/2023

National Contact Point(s)

Research and Innovation Foundation

29a Andrea Michalakopoulou Street, 1075 Nicosia
T.Th. 23422, 1683 Nicosia
+357 22205000
Email: support@research.org.cy

Dr Angelos Ntantos
Scientific Officer
Telephone: 35722205033
Email: antantos@research.org.cy

Dr Ioannis Theodorou

Scientific Officer
Telephone: 35722205038
Email: itheodorou@research.org.cy

(Publish Date: 13/12/2022-for internal use only)

EU Contact Point

Εuropean Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation

https://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/research-and-innovation_en#contact