Austrian SME recovering cobalt and platinum-group metals from batteries, catalysts, WEEE, and solar panels via hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical pilot systems.
KOPACEK KG (operating as ISL Group) is an Austrian technology SME specializing in the recovery of critical and precious metals from end-of-life industrial waste streams. Their core work sits at the intersection of metallurgical process engineering and circular economy practice — developing and operating pilot-scale systems that extract economically valuable materials (cobalt, platinum-group metals, gold) from discarded batteries, automotive catalysts, electronics, and photovoltaic panels. They bring applied engineering capability to Innovation Action consortia, meaning they help translate laboratory-proven processes into commercially viable recovery systems. Their involvement in consecutive EU-funded pilots suggests they maintain hands-on process infrastructure and can run real material throughput, not just desktop analysis.
CROCODILE (2018–2022) targeted first-of-kind compact cobalt recovery from spent batteries using a combination of bioleaching, solvometallurgy, ionometallurgy, and electrochemistry.
PEACOC (2021–2026) extends their recovery expertise to platinum-group metals from spent automotive catalysts, WEEE, photovoltaic panels, and PCBs at pre-commercial pilot scale.
Both projects rely on wet and thermal metallurgical processing routes, indicating a core process capability applied across different feedstocks and target metals.
Participation in pilots targeting automotive catalysts, WEEE, and photovoltaic panels requires upstream disassembly and feedstock preparation before metallurgical steps can begin.
CROCODILE explicitly included bioleaching, solvometallurgy, and ionometallurgy — lower-impact chemical alternatives to conventional acid leaching — as distinguishing process routes.
KOPACEK KG entered H2020 with a tightly focused mandate: recover cobalt — a single strategic metal — from lithium-ion batteries, using an unusually broad palette of metallurgical routes (bioleaching through to electrochemistry). By their second project, the target had broadened substantially: from one metal to an entire family of platinum-group metals, and from one waste stream (batteries) to at least four distinct end-of-life sources — automotive catalysts, electronics boards, photovoltaic modules, and PCBs. The underlying process engineering competence stayed constant, but the application scope expanded in direct response to EU critical raw material priorities. The trajectory points toward a generalist urban-mining capability rather than a single-feedstock specialist.
They are moving toward broad-spectrum urban mining — the ability to process any high-value end-of-life product stream, not just batteries — which positions them well for future EU circular economy and CRM supply-chain projects.
KOPACEK KG participates exclusively as a consortium partner; they have not coordinated any H2020 project, suggesting they prefer to contribute specialist technical capacity within projects led by larger academic or industrial actors. With 38 distinct partners across just two projects, they operate inside large, multi-stakeholder Innovation Action consortia — typical for pre-commercial pilots that require diverse process steps and validation sites. This breadth of partnerships relative to project count indicates they are comfortable integrating into complex consortia, but no pattern of repeated collaboration with the same partners is visible at this scale of data.
Despite only two projects, KOPACEK KG has worked alongside 38 unique consortium partners spanning 13 countries — an unusually wide reach for an SME at this project volume, reflecting the large-consortium structure of Innovation Actions. Their network is pan-European with no visible geographic concentration beyond their Austrian base.
KOPACEK KG occupies a rare niche as a private SME with demonstrated hands-on capability across both hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical recovery routes — a combination more often found in research institutes than commercial firms. Their consecutive participation in Innovation Actions (pre-commercial pilots, not research grants) signals that they have physical infrastructure and process know-how that can be validated at scale, which is exactly what industrial partners and technology licensors need. For a consortium building a CRM recovery or circular economy project that needs an applied engineering partner rather than a university lab, they offer direct industrial credibility without the overhead of a large company.
