Imagine giant piles of industrial waste sitting near our cities like old landfills. Instead of leaving them there, this project treats those piles like a gold mine. It uses a mobile factory to extract useful chemicals and rare minerals that can be sold back to factories. It's basically turning a pollution problem into a profit center.
Europe produces over 100 million tonnes of phosphogypsum waste annually, creating massive environmental liabilities and land-use conflicts near cities. These deposits contain valuable minerals that are currently wasted instead of being used as industrial raw materials.
A mobile pilot plant and a digital twin of the recovery processes. They also created a PG Exploitation Portal to map and characterize waste sites across European cities.
If you are a cement manufacturer dealing with high raw material costs — this project developed a way to recover calcium-based products from phosphogypsum that can replace traditional inputs. This transforms a waste stream into a usable industrial resource.
If you are a chemical producer dealing with volatile supply chains for sulfates — this project developed processes to extract sodium sulphate and ammonium sulphate from waste. This provides a sustainable, circular source of essential chemical precursors.
If you are a battery company dealing with the scarcity of strategic minerals — this project developed methods to recover rare earth elements (REE) and phosphorus from industrial residues. This secures a secondary source of critical raw materials needed for green tech.
Based on available project data, specific pricing or implementation costs are not provided; however, the project focuses on creating new circular business models to ensure economic viability.
Yes, the project is building a mobile pilot plant to move the technology from TRL 4-5 to TRL 6-7, demonstrating production under realistic conditions.
The project explicitly addresses IP protection and aims to make results publicly available and exploitable through a Community of Practice.
The project includes local workshops and guidelines addressing regulation aspects and environmental safety to ensure the recovered materials meet legal standards.
The project period runs from 2024-06-01 to 2028-05-31, aiming to reach TRL 6-7 by the end of this timeframe.
The consortium is heavily weighted toward industrial application, with 10 industrial partners (34% ratio) and 2 SMEs. This strong mix of 8 research centers and 5 universities ensures that the transition from lab validation to the TRL 6-7 mobile pilot plant is backed by both academic rigor and commercial viability across 12 different countries.
Contact IDENER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT AIE in Spain
Contact us to connect with the FIC-FIGHTERS consortium for pilot plant partnerships.
