TARANTULA H2020 EU project on novel technologies for the recovery of critical raw materials kicks-off

ICAMCyL attended this month the kick-off meeting of the European project H2020 TARANTULA (GA Nº 821159), funded by the European research and innovation program Horizon 2020. TECNALIA, leader of the project, hosted this meeting at its facilities in San Sebastián (Spain), the past 4th and 5th of June.

The aim of this project is to develop new recovery methods for three specific metals of high technological interest: tungsten (W), niobium (Nb) and tantalum (Ta). These three elements were recently incorporated to the list of critical raw materials (CRM) elaborated by the European Commission in 2017. CRM combine a growing economic importance and an increasing global supply risk.

Despite all three being classified as CRM by the European Commission (EC), fractions of these indispensable metals are dissipated as by-products in mining waste streams as well as processing scrap. The objective of TARANTULA is to develop a suite of cost-effective, scalable and eco-friendly – bio-, hydro-, iono-, solvo-, pyro- and electro-metallurgical – processes with high selectivity and recovery rates.

These novel technologies will be a considerable step up compared to the current state of the art, allowing the extraction of market-ready metals. Flexibility will be a key asset of these methods, minimising the costs required for future processing installations at industrial scale. The industrial partners of the consortium will be responsible for validating these technologies at an industrial level through the implementation of prototypes.

In parallel, a process of identification and assessment of existing underexploited secondary sources of W, Nb and Ta will be carried out. The information generated will later become part of the Raw Materials Information System (RMIS) which will boost the impact of the project far beyond the current consortium.

The role of ICAMCyL within the project will focus mainly on two tasks: on one hand, we will analyse the distribution of by-products containing W, Nb and Ta in European primary production, including the analysis of the regulatory framework for future valorisation of these resources; on the other hand, we will contribute to identify and engage stakeholders (potential suppliers, manufacturers, users), thus contributing to the future exploitation of the results.

ICAMCyL's participation in this project reinforces our role as a reference centre for the recovery of raw materials with high technological interest, contributing to our central goal of promoting sustainable mining practices, valorising the wealth of our subsoil and the industrial and urban waste in which lie a good part of the critical raw materials key for Europe's future competitiviness.

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The European TARANTULA project is funded by the Horizon 2020 program of the European Commission.
Grant agreement ID: 821159.
Program H2020-EU.3.5.3. - Ensuring the sustainable supply of non-energy and non-agricultural raw materials
Topic CE-SC5-06-2018 - New technologies for the enhanced recovery of by-products
Call for proposal H2020-SC5-2018-2
Funding Scheme RIA - Research and Innovation action