UNLOCKING THE SUPPLY OF RARE EARTH ELEMENTS IN EUROPE THROUGH RESPONSIBLE, SUSTAINABLE AND DECARBONISED INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES

Responsible, sustainable and low CO2 footprint mineral extraction is vital for the preservation of our planet. Ensuring responsible supply of minerals, involves addressing the environmental, social, and economic impacts of mineral extraction and developing technologies and know-how to minimize them. Mining within these low-impact boundaries in a world that is putting an increasing pressure on the mineral supply requires developing environmentally friendly, safe, intelligent and resource efficient extraction technologies and methods. REESOURCE will set a sustainable and decarbonized value chain basis for the extraction of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) in Europe, supporting the ambition of the continent to become self-sufficient on REEs. This target will be achieved through a set of actions (scientific, technical, social and financial) that will serve to pave the road for the development of the European mining of the future. These include i) enhancing key technologies of raise mining to foster “invisible mining”, with minimal socioenvironmental impact and lower CO2 emissions’ footprint compared to existing approaches; ii) developing novel formulations based on environmentally friendly chemicals for both, the mineral beneficiation process of REEs and the process water treatment, supporting the recirculation of this resource; iii) developing a novel stabilization technique for tailings, making them suitable for backfilling, stabilizing the mine and avoiding the need of tailing ponds; iv) valorize the tailings through a Circular Economy approach, to make them suitable for expanded value chains as geopolymers for construction applications and composite materials for catalytic and CO2 capture applications; v) assess the social dimension to maximize early social awareness, engagement and acceptance and vi) multiply the project impact through cross-fertilization with other projects and clusters, supporting the mass adoption of UNFC and UNRMS in the raw materials sector.