The RETURN project uses eco-friendly liquid salts and low-energy electrochemical processes to recover >99% of the metals contained in waste PCBs panels. It utilises digital recognition, assessment and sorting, working in parallel with Digital Product Passport systems and a Dynamic Digital Marketplace to return recovered or repaired components and materials to EU markets. The impact is maximised by commercially attractive circular or closed-loop recycling of e-waste with facilities located directly into existing recycling centres at low investment levels. Sustainability and techno-economic viability assessments are built into all stages, assisting decision making and contributing to commercially useful performance and sustainability data to support post-project exploitation.

RECIRCULATE addresses the needs of European recycling sector by overcoming current challenges relating to automated dismantling and sorting; safe logistics; fast, cost-effective and reliable State of Health and State of Safety characterization. Combining these advances with a blockchain-based platform, that will combine the data collected during dismantling and recycling and the battery provenance, will enable a unique battery passport and virtual marketplace for e-mobility, consumer and stationary Battery Energy Storage Systems. This approach will enable the RECIRCULATE consortium to create a cascade approach that will enable increased end-of-life battery repair, reuse, remanufacture and recycling. The advances in RECIRCULATE will based on best-in-world innovations, including: • Automated dismantling based on Artificial Intelligence with accurate sorting by SoX and battery provenance for recycling. • Fast, cost-effective, reliable SoX characterization; Safe storage and transportation based on smart logistics solutions. • Blockchain-based Battery Passports that tracks key battery data, and enables both a complete circular system for e-mobility batteries and a unique, blockchain-based virtual marketplace. The unique virtual marketplace will allow for the creation of new circular business models for repair, reuse, remanufacture and recycling of second-life batteries, minimizing cost, time, energy and environmental impact whilst maximizing battery value. RECIRCULATE represents a pan-European consortium of world leading organisations that are looking to commercialize these technologies of European origin. The coordinator, Centria, is leading activities in battery dismantling. The consortium is strengthened by very large organisations, including: Ford, who are currently undertaking development for e-mobility, and DHL a global leader in logistics and reverse logistics as well as European SMEs with world leading technologies.

Current recycling practices for Photovoltaic (PV) waste modules are unrefined and recover low volume and low value materials. To be economical and sustainable the recycling of PV waste needs to efficiently recover all of the material constituents at a quality suitable for the reuse in new PVs, with minimal impact. APOLLO will create a circular approach to link legacy recycling, future production and future recycling. A pilot line will be demonstrated and used to process an input of 40 tonnes of PV waste which will be recycled, resulting in enough reclaimed materials for 1 tonne of remanufactured silicon and 30 exemplar PV modules. Incoming modules will be streamed by glass composition, enabling batch recovery of high-quality glass, to be used for new solar-grade glass. A novel continuous ‘sonification’ technique, (ultrasonically excited etchant) will rapidly separate silicon, silver, copper and other metals in a sequence along a pipe-based process. Used liquid etchants will be recycled in a closed loop resulting in low waste, small footprint. Further, recovered silicon will be refined to a purity suitable for new PV-grade ingot growth. The objective is to deliver purified silicon with a minimum purity of 99.9999%. Multiple innovations increase the percentage weight recovery from 18% to 93%. APOLLO will prove the suitability of the recycled silicon by growing new ingots, manufacturing solar cells and then new PV modules. 20 PERC-based modules, 10 Tandem modules and 30sqm of single junction perovskite cells will be made. These modules will incorporate new designs, materials and manufacturing methods, and be designed for disassembly and recycling. Blockchain-based Digital Product Passports (DPPs) for PV will be designed and implemented as well as an online marketplace for reused, remanufactured and/or recycled PV components. DPPs provide secure and trustworthy data for the life of the product and aid recycling by supplying material, hazards and history on request.

BATRAW main objective is to develop and demonstrate two innovative pilot systems for sustainable recycling and end of life management of EV batteries, domestic batteries, and battery scraps contributing to the generation of secondary streams of strategically important CRMs and battery RMs. The first pilot will deliver innovative technologies and processes for dismantling of battery packs achieving recovery of 95% of battery pack components and separating waste streams including cells and modules by semi-automated processes for recycling. BATRAW's second pilot will scale and demonstrate efficient pre-treatment and continuous hydrometallurgical recycling of battery cells and modules including innovative steps for C-graphite, Al and Cu separation from black mass and Mn extraction, achieving a recovery of the full range of battery RMs (Co, Ni, Mn, Li, C-graphite, Al and Cu) at selectivity of 90-98%. Innovations wil be scaled and demonstrated in a pilot systems with recycling capacity of 1 ton lithium-ion battery (LIB) packs dismantled per shift (8 hours) and treat 300 kg BM per day. BATRAW outcomes are of strategic importance within the prospects of the exponentially growing EU battery market and reducing EU import dependency of CRMs. The project will further promote the overall sustainability and circularity of battery products and raw materials by developing new procedures for battery repair and reuse, enabling faster diagnostics and conversion of EV packs into second life batteries, delivering eco-design guidelines for battery manufacturing, demonstrating blockchain platform for raw material tracking and supply chain transparency (Battery Passport) and delivering guidelines for safe transports and handling of battery waste. The project aims to maximize market uptake and impact through ambitious C&D&E plan including circular business models, innovations workshops, dissemination in EU platforms, policy briefs and other strategies to reach markets and stakeholders.