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

技术关键金属（TCM）是实现净零排放目标的关键。这些金属包括例如锂、钴、稀土和铂族金属。传统中药被认为是“关键”的，因为它们在经济上很重要，但有供应短缺的风险。英国政府的净零战略：“建设更绿色”（2021年）强调了这些材料的供应是英国能源转型的关键挑战，以及这些材料的循环经济需求。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压力。英国的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年）。目前，TCM的回收率非常低，例如用于稀土磁体的钕< 5%（“关键原材料弹性”欧盟报告）。这有许多原因，包括缺乏具体的激励措施或立法，目前的产品设计往往阻碍分离，在某些应用中，关键材料的浓度非常低，价值链往往是分散的，目前为散装金属设计的回收工艺相当粗糙，导致精细分布的TCM在线性经济中丢失。RECREATE的首要目标是为中药开发循环经济，使材料或组件保持最高价值，同时保持最低的环境足迹。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），它们各自专注于中药提取和再利用或回收的不同技术。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为关键材料创造循环经济的努力。该研究以全系统的视角为基础，深入了解这些材料回收利用的工业挑战，以及推动循环经济的治理结构。该项目将进行低TRL转型研究，以彻底改善自动分拣，“短循环”回收，减少环境影响的高温冶金和化学工艺，稀释废水的生物工艺，以及使再利用或回收更容易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，可以从各种产品中检测、分类、分离和再利用或回收各种中药。这些新技术将使用生命周期和技术经济评估进行基准测试，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.