On October 21st, the Institute of Energy and Fuel Processing Technology in Zabrze hosted the Kick-off meeting on the waste2CRM project. The meeting was attended by representatives of all project partners. In addition to discussing important issues related to the course of work within the project, guests had the opportunity to see the research infrastructure of the Institute.

At the beginning of September 2024, a new R&D project has been launched under The Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS), entitled: “Determination of the potential for acquiring critical raw materials from mining wastes, and the development of the method for their effective recovery” (acronym: Waste2CRM)
RFCS is a EU funding programme supporting research projects in the coal and steel sectors.
The subject of the research will be mining waste from hard coal and lignite mines stored in post-mining dumps (coal waste heaps).
Critical raw materials are materials necessary for developing the European Union economy, used in many sectors of the economy, such as: renewable energy, electronics, space, telecommunications, automotive, medical and defence industries. Due to their strategic importance, the European Commission has developed a list of critical raw materials for the EU, which is regularly revised and updated. It includes, among others: elements such as lithium, antimony, beryllium, cobalt, indium, gallium, germanium, magnesium, niobium, tantalum, tungsten, platinum group metals such as platinum, palladium, iridium, rhodium, ruthenium, osmium and rare earth metals, namely: yttrium, scandium and lanthanides, especially neodymium and dysprosium.
The project aims to determine the potential and prospects for using mining waste as an alternative source of critical raw materials, as well as to develop a methodology for their effective recovery. The subject of the research will be mining waste deposited in mine dumps, originating from hard coal mining. Thanks to cooperation with foreign entities, the database will also be supplemented with waste from Greece and Spain, including waste from brown coal (lignite). The international consortium implementing the project includes research entities from Poland, including the Institute of Energy and Fuel Processing Technology in Zabrze, which acts as the coordinator, the Central Mining Institute – State Research Institute, the Łukasiewicz Research Network – Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals, as well as the Laboratory of the Economic Geology from the University of Patras in Greece and Systra Subterra in Spain.