PEACOC will showcase a first-of-a-kind economically and environmentally viable pre-commercial metallurgical system for recovering Precious Metals (PMs) (i.e. Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) identified as critical raw materials by the European Commission (EC), as well as gold (Au) and silver (Ag)), highly important for the EU economy, from a wide variety of abundant end-of-life (EPEACOC will showcase a first-of-a-kind economically and environmentally viable pre-commercial metallurgical system for recovering Precious Metals (PMs) (i.e. Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) identified as critical raw materials by the European Commission (EC), as well as gold (Au) and silver (Ag)), highly important for the EU economy, from a wide variety of abundant end-of-life (EoL) products in Europe. The concept is mainly based on previously developed recovery and refining technologies to TRL 5 in the PLATIRUS Research and Innovation project (Micro-Wave assisted leaching and Gas Diffusion Electrocrystallization GDEx), which were flagged by the Innovation Radar initiative of the EC as excellent innovations and showed a significant cost reduction and lower environmental impact compared to state-of-the-art hydrometallurgical processes as will be shown throughout the proposal. The PEACOC system will be demonstrated at pre-commercial scale at TRL7 with capacity to treat ~50t of PMs concentrates/year i.e., with a recovery capacity of i)2 kg PGMs/week from spent autocatalysts (containing ~2.5kg PGMs/t), ii) 0.5-1 kg Au/week from Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) with a focus on low and medium grade PCBA (containing 20-100 g Au/t) that are currently poorly valorized in industrial smelting processes due to low PM concentrations, and iii) 10 kg Ag/week from EoL Photovoltaic (PV) panels (containing ~3-10 kg Ag/t) which will be an abundant resource in Europe in the coming few years. The project will demonstrate the production of PMs at a profit margin up to 80% with respect to current PMs market prices.

The cerAMfacturing project will develop a completely new approach for ceramic multi material additive manufacturing which will allow series production of customised and multifunctional components for manifold applications for obtaining property combinations, like electrical conductive/electrical insulating, dense/porous or two-colored components. In five case studies demonstrators for personalized medical products – micro surgical tools, implants, and remedies – such as consumer products will be manufactured starting with the patient specific physical dimensions and ending with components validated under practically relevant conditions. For achieving these goals manifold tasks will be solved starting with method and device development. Especially suspension based additive manufacturing methods will be developed and qualified in cerAMfacturing, because this route promises a much better component performance in comparison to powder based methods. Multi material applications play a dominant role in the project. Beside ceramic/ceramic also ceramic/metal material combinations will be developed. For that purpose either additive manufacturing methods will be qualified or AM methods will be combined with conventional shaping routes like tape casting or ceramic injection moulding. The last mentioned combination of technologies will allow the individualisation of large series production components. Appropriate control methodologies to guarantee a high quality level of the custom made products will be implemented. The cerAMfacturing project will provide the technical equipment for combining AM steps with conventional ceramic shaping routes.