Circular economy will be one of the main drivers to significantly reduce CO2 in the refractory industry, as the energy-intensive primary raw material production has by far the highest impact on the product's carbon footprint. So far, automated sorting solutions could not consolidate in refractory recycling because the development is extremely complex and requires combination of different sensor technologies. The ReSoURCE project will innovate the full process chain of refractory recycling with an AI-supported multi sensor sorting equipment as its core technology. Combining laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, hyper spectral imaging with optimized pre-processing and automated ejection will lay the foundation to set a new state of the art for refractory sorting starting of particle sizes down to below 1 mm. The continuous monitoring of the economic and ecologic benefits by techno-economic and life cycle assessment will ensure the green and digital transformation of the refractory recycling value chain. Reaching the ReSoURCE objectives will lead to massive annual CO2 reductions (up to 800 kilo tonnes) and energy savings (up to 760 GWh) in the European Union. Naturally usage of secondary raw materials is related to a reduction of extractive processing in the raw material mines (reduction of 1 million ton). Simultaneously, it will give access to currently unexploited raw material sources within the European, therewith strengthening EUs resilience by fostering refractory material autarky, particularly as some of the refractory base materials are listed on the EU's critical raw material list (bauxite, graphite). The two demonstrators to be build in course of the ReSoURCE project, will ensure the straight-forward exploitation and implementation of this revolutionising recycling process chain in the European industry.

The proposed project aims to increase recycling ratio of steel and metals through improved sorting of scrap, better separation of non-wanted tramp elements as well as the valuable alloying elements. Steel can be recycled over and over again while retaining its technical properties. However, contaminations of tramp elements and losses of alloying elements do occur in the solid state and liquid state recovery processes currently employed in the industrial value chain. The project aims to enhance the integrated value chain of scrap based steel production through; investigate and develop scrap preparation methods, research new ways of sorting and separation of material, investigate and develop specific methods to remove copper and tin in the liquid phase and to recover copper form steelmaking residues through pyrometallurgical processes, create new steel products that can handle a higher copper content while maintaining required application properties, and finally lab-scale experiments to develop thermodynamic and kinetic modelling focusing on tramp elements. The target is to achieve 90% EOL recovery rates and a reduction of tramp elements by 60-70%, improved separation and sorting of scrap with a targeted increase in separation specificity of 50% and a target of copper element recovery from steelmaking residues about 60%. Ultimately the developed models will, when relevant, be verified with data from full-scale tests in industrially relevant environments. The consortium includes 8 partners from 5 different EU-countries a scrap recycler (STEIL) / a steelmaker (SIDENOR) – and different R&D entities (KTH, KOBOLDE, TECNALIA, University of Limerick and Politecnico de Bari) as well as a supplier (LSA) of sensors for scrap identification covering all the competences needed for the development of the MEDALS project

iPhotoCult aims to design, develop, demonstrate, and validate innovative and intelligent solutions that will allow for non-invasive and safe ways to inspect, document, diagnose, and monitor Cultural Heritage (CH) so as to ensure efficient adaptation of sustainable management plans. These solutions comprise (a) a unique suite of advanced diagnostic and monitoring tools along with methodologies for their effective and optimum use, combined with (b) an intelligent data processing, visualization and prediction software services platform, for the remote and/or on-site monitoring of CH buildings, monuments and artefacts impacted by a wide variety of environmental and anthropogenic threats. iPhotoCult contributes significantly to the preservation of CH by adding verifiable dimensions to preservation strategies. The iPhotoCult Solutions will enable and empower CH community to better assess CH in a cost-effective, efficient, reliable, user-friendly and safe manner. These solutions will revolutionize the capabilities of end-users to diagnose and continually monitor the condition of materials constituting CH including those used in their restoration. iPhotoCult interdisciplinary approach involving many different stakeholders and CH pilots across Europe will serve as use-cases for demonstration, testing and validation of the iPhotoCult Solutions delivered and applied in the form of demonstrators. The outcomes to a variety of CH pilots will provide crucial insights and enable the optimization of the tools and methodologies to help in the decision-making and serve for replication to Europe’s CH in many in real settings. Ultimately, iPhotoCult main goal is to contribute to the sustainable management of Europe's CH by leveraging advanced photonics technologies and intelligent software to contribute to the decision-making process for its preservation. iPhotoCult aims to develop a comprehensive, cost-effective, and scalable solution that can be deployed across Europe and beyond.

Specific raw materials become increasingly important to manufacture high level industrial products. Especially electronic equipment contains precious metals and a series of strategic raw materials. To date the material specific recycling is focused on mass stream concepts such as shredder processes and metallurgy to extract the high-value metallic constituents, i.e. copper, gold, silver. However, a series of critical elements cannot be recovered efficiently or is even lost in dust or residual fractions. The goal of ADIR is to demonstrate the feasibility of a key technology for next generation urban mining. An automated disassembly of electronic equipment will be worked out to separate and recover valuable materials. The concept is based on image processing, robotic handling, pulsed power technology, 3D laser measurement, real-time laser material identification (to detect materials), laser processing (to access components, to selectively unsolder these; to cut off parts of a printed circuit board), and automatic separation into different sorting fractions. A machine concept will be worked out being capable to selectively disassemble printed circuit boards and mobile phones with short cycle times to gain sorting fractions containing high amounts of valuable materials. Examples are those materials with high economic importance and significant supply risk such as tantalum, rare earth elements, germanium, cobalt, palladium, gallium and tungsten. A demonstrator will be developed and evaluated in field tests at a recycling company. The obtained sorting fractions will be studied with respect to their further processing and recovery potential for raw materials. Refining companies will define requirements and test the processing of sorting fractions with specific material enrichments. An advisory board will be established incorporating three telecommunication enterprises.