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Project

Sustainable processing of Europe’s low-grade sulphidic and lateritic Ni/Co ores and tailings into battery-grade metals (ENICON)

ENICON tackles one of Europe’s key Grand Societal Challenges as outlined in the EC’s Strategic Action Plan on Batteries (COM(2019)176): how can we ensure a secure and sustainable supply of battery raw materials? The latter include battery-grade cobalt and nickel for lithium-ion NMC batteries, which are key enablers for the transition to a climate-neutral Europe by 2050. The overarching aim of ENICON is to develop sustainable processing schemes for Europe’s (a) sulphidic Ni/Co ores (incl. hydrothermal, magmatic sulphide and sediment-hosted ores), (b) lateritic Ni(/Co) ores and (c) Ni/Co-containing tailings, allowing to produce battery-grade cobalt and nickel. Apart from improving existing cobalt and nickel refining processes in Europe, ENICON will also develop new, fully integrated flowsheets for the production of battery-grade cobalt and nickel, thereby boosting Europe’s domestic cobalt and nickel supplies. All ENICON innovations will be benchmarked from an environmental, economic and social point of view, with respect to existing state-of-the-art processes in Europe and the rest of the world.
Date:1 Jun 2021 →  31 May 2023
Keywords:batteries, cobalt, nickel, metallurgy
Disciplines:Battery technology