METIUM is the first interregional investment portfolio designed to structure and scale urban mining of strategic raw materials (SRMs) at the European level. As a cornerstone of the project, METIUM will enhance key hydrometallurgical technological capabilities, establishing an interregional “hydrometallurgical triangle” of industrial innovators with the potential to place less developed regions (LDRs) at the forefront of strengthening Europe’s resilience in the sustainable supply of SRMs.
The project is built around 15 joint demonstrators, scaled across four key SRM value chains that are critical for the green and digital transitions. These demonstrators will be validated and scaled from TRL 6–7 to TRL 9, through three main phases:
The main objectives of the project are to:
The main objective of METIUM is to demonstrate efficient interregional processing of 3,200 kg of waste/endoflife (EoL) products across the four value chains, recovering between 80% and 99.99% of a range of 11 strategic raw materials (Co, Mn, Li, Ni, Ir, Pt, Rh, Pd, REEs, Cu, Al).
To achieve this, METIUM will invest in the scaleup of stateoftheart technologies to build the first interregional Urban Mine, through the following actions:
⦁ Creation and consolidation of four interregional SRM Urban Mining Value Chains
⦁ Implementation of scaleup investments in 15 firstofakind technologies
⦁ Construction of the first interregional “Hydrometallurgical Triangle”, driven by innovators from less developed regions
Within the METIUM framework, the first EUlevel urban mining market for platinum group metals (PGMs) and photovoltaic panels will be tested. This ambitious initiative will also rely on strong coordination mechanisms both across value chains and between laboratories.
The project provides a reliable alternative to pyrometallurgical technologies, which currently dominate the market but are economically and environmentally inefficient.
To this end:
⦁ Four urban mines will be unlocked in four LDRs across Poland, Greece, Portugal, and Slovenia, while leading innovators from six less developed regions will be positioned as coordinators of a value chain or urban mine.
⦁ Relevant regulatory and compliance challenges will be addressed, creating the right conditions to establish new partnerships and to scale this interregional urban mine by including additional regions—particularly LDRs—which remain an untapped source of SRMs and innovation.
A total of 19 partners (including 11 from eight less developed regions) will focus on a selected group of SRMs for which the EU currently shows a dependency of 86–100% on nonEU countries (e.g. China), such as lithiumion battery materials, platinum group metals (PGMs), rare earth elements, aluminum, and copper. These materials are critical for the EU’s green and digital transitions, as well as for defence applications.
