en.Wedoany.com Reported - The European M-BAT project has officially launched its research activities, aiming to reduce the EU's dependence on imports of lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and graphite by recovering key raw materials needed for battery manufacturing. Funded by Horizon Europe, this initiative will develop four technological processes and test them at pilot plants in Spain, Poland, and the United Kingdom.
Coordinated by Idener.AI, M-BAT brings together a consortium of 18 partners from seven countries, including Spain. The project aims to strengthen Europe's strategic autonomy in the battery value chain, a critical component for electric vehicles, electronic devices, and energy storage systems.
The planned technologies will process various existing industrial and mining sources across Europe, including mining wash streams, industrial sludge, black mass from spent lithium-ion batteries, and mineral-bearing geothermal water. The project's approach is based on applying circular economy criteria to obtain essential materials for batteries, aiming to reduce the environmental and social impacts associated with the primary extraction and international transport of critical metals.
Recovered materials will be validated by industry users and battery specialist centers. This phase will be used to check their industrial applicability and verify that they meet the quality standards required for battery manufacturing.
The four technological processes will be tested at pilot facilities located in Spain, Poland, and the United Kingdom. Deployment in environments close to real operating conditions is intended to accelerate the future industrial implementation of the developed solutions. For the Spanish pilot plant, the Cetaqua Water Technology Center (Cetaqua-Centro Tecnológico del Agua) will participate in optimizing the process before, during, and after operation. This facility will treat streams from the mining industry and evaluate recovery schemes aimed at improving processing efficiency.
Cetaqua's intervention will focus on a stepwise selective precipitation process. This innovation will optimize treatment, enabling a waste-free circular process and recovering cobalt with the specific quality required for batteries.
In addition to raw material recovery, M-BAT incorporates environmental and social criteria into process design from the initial stage. The program will continuously assess the sustainability of the solutions and analyze aspects related to the social perception of the technology.
This article is compiled by Wedoany. All AI citations must indicate the source as "Wedoany". If there is any infringement or other issues, please notify us promptly, and we will modify or delete it accordingly. Email: news@wedoany.com
