RECREATE (REcycling CRitical Elements in Advanced Technologies for the Environment)

技术关键金属(TCM)是实现净零目标的关键。这些金属包括例如锂、钴、稀土和铂族金属。中成药被认为是“关键的”，因为它们在经济上很重要，但存在供应短缺的风险。英国政府的《净零战略：重建绿色》(2021年)强调，这些材料的供应是英国能源转型的关键挑战，以及这些材料需要循环经济。它们被用于风力发电、电动汽车发动机和电池、LED、太阳能电池和氢气经济。政府(2022年)的关键矿产战略“面向未来的韧性”强调了这些材料的重要性和全球供应链的压力。英国第一份关键矿物清单确定了18种元素为TCM(英国地质调查局，2022)。目前，TCM的回收率非常低，例如用于稀土磁体的&lt；5%的Nd3+(“关键原材料弹性”欧盟报告)。造成这种情况的原因有许多，包括缺乏具体的奖励措施或立法、目前的产品设计往往阻碍分离、在一些应用中关键材料的集中度很低、价值链往往支离破碎、以及目前为大宗金属设计的回收工艺相当粗糙，导致精细分布的中成药在线性经济中迷失。Recreate的首要目标是为中药发展循环经济，以最低的环境足迹保持材料或部件的最高价值形式。该项目汇集了英国三家领先的研究机构(伯明翰大学、莱斯特大学和爱丁堡大学)，它们各自专注于不同的中药提取、再利用或回收技术。该项目包括领先的工业和公共部门参与者和政策制定者，他们都参与了在英国创建关键材料循环经济的努力。这项研究是从全系统的角度出发的，这一视角源于对这些材料回收利用的行业挑战以及推动循环经济的治理结构的深刻理解。该项目将进行低TRL的变革性研究，以从根本上改进自动分拣、“短路”回收、减少对环境影响的火法冶金和化学工艺、稀释废水的生物工艺，以及更容易重复使用或回收的新材料和产品设计。最终，该项目正在开发一个技术工具箱，可以对各种产品中的各种中药进行传感、分类、分离和再利用或回收利用。这些新技术将使用生命周期和技术经济评估作为基准，并将探索循环经济的立法驱动因素。

Technology critical metals (TCMs) are pivotal to achieving Net Zero goals. These metals include for example lithium, cobalt, rare earths and platinum group metals. TCMs are deemed to be "critical" because they are economically important but at risk of short supply. The UK Government's Net Zero Strategy: "Build Back Greener" (2021) highlights the supply of these materials as a key challenge for the UK's energy transition and the need for a circular economy in these materials. They are used in wind-power, EV motors and batteries, LEDs, solar-cells and the hydrogen economy.The Government's (2022) Critical Minerals Strategy, "Resilience for the Future", emphasises the importance of these materials and the global supply-chain pressures. The UK's first critical mineral list identified 18 elements as TCMs (British Geological Survey, 2022).Currently, recycling rates for TCMs are very low, for example < 5% for neodymium , used in rare earth magnets ("Critical Raw Materials Resilience" EU report). There are a number of reasons for this, including a lack of specific incentives or legislation, current product designs often impede separation, in some applications there is a very low concentration of the critical material, often the value chains are fragmented, and current recycling processes, designed for bulk metals, are rather crude resulting in the finely distributed TCMs being lost in a linear economy. The overarching aim of RECREATE is to develop a circular economy for TCMs, keeping the materials or components in the highest value form with the lowest environmental footprint. The project brings together three of the leading research institutes in the UK (Universities of Birmingham, Leicester and Edinburgh) who each specialise in different technologies for the extraction and re-use or recycling of TCMs. The project includes leading industrial and public-sector players and policy makers, all involved in the drive to create a circular economy for critical materials in the UK. The research is informed by a system-wide perspective derived from a deep understanding of the industrial challenges for recycling of these materials, and of the governance structures that drive a circular economy. This project will undertake low TRL transformative research to generate radical improvements in automated sorting, "short loop" recycling, pyrometallurgical and chemical processes with reduced environmental impact, biological processes for dilute effluents, and new materials and product-designs which make re-use or recycling easier. Ultimately the project is developing a toolbox of technologies which can sense, sort, separate and re-use or recycle a broad range of TCMs from a wide range of products. These new technologies will be benchmarked using life cycle and techno economic assessment and the legislative drivers for a circular economy will be explored.