“TECNALIA focuses on the optimisation of pretreatment and advanced hydrometallurgy for the production of high purity (minimum 95%) rare earth oxides”
Achieving Europe's climate neutrality goals will depend on our ability to develop clean energy and mobility solutions in a more sustainable way
The energy transition will increase the demand for raw materials such as rare earth elements for the production of permanent magnets. These raw materials are used in the renewable energy, mobility, robotics or ICT sectors, among others: they are mostly imported into the EU.
The REEPRODUCE initiative, in which TECNALIA participates, aims to increase Europe's autonomy in these raw materials and to position the EU as a world leader in the circular economy of rare earth elements.
TECNALIA’s participation
In the field of waste recovery, TECNALIA's key line of research is the recycling of permanent magnets to recover rare earth metals: it will treat different permanent magnets from different waste streams to bring its developments to a high level of technological maturity.
Laura Sánchez, Senior Researcher at TECNALIA, leads the initiative at the technology centre. The main focus will be on the optimisation of pretreatment and advanced hydrometallurgy for the production of high purity (minimum 95 %) rare earth oxides.
Main objective of REEPRODUCE
REEPRODUCE aims to establish the first sustainable, competitive and complete European value chain for REE recycling on an industrial scale, capable of producing REE from end-of-life products at a competitive cost and with environmentally friendly technologies.
Achieving this objective will ensure a strategic value chain for Europe's green transition.
This project has received funding from the Horizon EU research and innovation program, in accordance with Subsidy Agreement No. 101057733.
