The vision of COCOP is that complex process-industry plants are optimally run by operators with the guidance of a coordinating, real-time optimisation system. COCOP will strengthen the global position of the European process industry, which represents 20 per cent of the European manufacturing base with around 450,000 companies generating €1.6 billion in turnover and 6.8 million jobs. The project’s objective is to enable plant-wide monitoring and control by using the model-based, predictive, coordinating optimisation concept in integration with plant’s automation systems. This ambitious approach will be developed and verified in co-operation of European universities, research institutes and industry. The Consortium comprises two universities, three research organisations, the leading copper-plant technology provider, two large companies from the process industry (steel and special chemicals) and four SMEs providing automation solutions. Technical objective is to define, design and implement a concept that integrates existing industrial control systems with efficient data management and optimisation methods and provides means to monitor and control large industrial production processes. The plant-wide monitoring and control comprehend computationally intensive data analysis and large scale optimisation. The social objective is to improve operator plant-wide awareness and reduce mental workload. COCOP will liaise with standardisation bodies (automation) to ensure a sustained impact of the project’s results. Commercialisation of the solution by its process-automation industry partners will allow plant operators to approach optimal production and result in reduced energy and resource consumption, and decreased on-site material handling time and greenhouse gas emissions.

METGROW+ will address and solve bottlenecks in the European raw materials supply by developing innovative metallurgical technologies for unlocking the use of potential domestic raw materials. The METGROW+ consortium has received an EIP RM Commitment status. The consortium is supported by internationally respected research institutes and universities. Many of the partners (9) are members of EIT KIC Raw Materials consortium as well. The value chain and business models for metal recovery from low grade ores and wastes are carefully looked after. Within this project, both primary and secondary materials are studied as potential metal resources. Economically important nickel-cobalt deposits and low grade polymetallic wastes, iron containing sludges (goethite, jarosite etc.) which are currently not yet being exploited due to technical bottlenecks, are in focus. Concurrently, METGROW+ targets innovative hydrometallurgical processes to extract important metals including Ni, Cu, Zn, Co, In, Ga, Ge from low grade ores in a cost-effective way. In addition a toolbox for metallurgical system is created in the project using new methods and combinations. The unused potential of metal containing fine grained industrial residues are evaluated, while hybrid and flexible hydrometallurgical processes and treatment methods of fines are developed for both materials. Training and education of new professionals are facilitated within the METGROW+ project. The knowledge of raw materials and sustainable technologies will attract new talents in the field who can flexibly change fields from treatment of secondary to primary resources, which also smoothens the economic ups and downs in the primary sector.

The aim of ITERAMS is to develop a proof of concept for more environmentally friendly and economic mine site operations, in Europe and globally. For that, the ITERAMS project focuses on the isolation of process waters completely from the adjacent water systems. This will require development of new methods for optimising and controlling water qualities at each process step. As a bonus, this will also facilitate the recovery of additional valuable constituents. The ITERAMS project will develop research and dimensioning protocols suitable for use at the mines processing different ores. In this context, validation of the concepts will have an essential role. In the planned project, it will be performed at selected mine sites processing sulphide ores, although the concepts will be generic and thus also suitable for other types of ores like gold, rare earth, and phosphate ores. The closure of water cycles at each process stage will inevitably increase their thermodynamical and kinetic unstability (as is also the case with conventional tailing ponds). In addition, water temperatures will also increase, causing higher bacterial growth, especially for iron and sulphur oxidising species. This will result in a dynamic situation that has never so far been worked on. The ITERAMS project will create new academic and industrial knowledge and capabilities to tackle such questions. The tightly closed water cycles can be realised only if the tailings can be filtered and stacked dry. ITERAMS will demonstrate the use of geopolymerisation to create water and oxygen tight covers on the deposited tailings. For that, the tailings streams will be modified for their easier geopolymerisation. The ITERAMS water and waste efficient methods will be validated at mine sites in Finland, in Portugal and additionally either in Chile or South Africa.

Unlike China, Russia or South Africa, the EU-28 Member States are not in the fortunate position of having vast, easily accessible ore deposits containing valuable metals. However, Europe does have large quantities of secondary industrial residues (tailings, sludges, slags and ashes) that contain sig¬nificant concentrations of both critical and economically important metals. The Euro¬pean Training Network for the Sustainable, zero-waste valorisation of critical-metal-containing industrial process residues (SOCRATES) targets ground-breaking metallurgical processes, incl. plasma-, bio-, solvo-, electro- and ionometallurgy, that can be integrated into environmentally friendly, zero-waste valorisation flow sheets. By unlocking the potential of these secondary raw materials, SOCRATES contributes to a more diversified and sustainable supply chain for critical metals (cf. Priority area 3 in EC Circular Economy Action Plan; COM(2015)614/2). The SOCRATES consortium brings together all the relevant stakeholders along the value chain, from metal extraction, to metal recovery, and to residual matrix valorisation in added-value applications, such as supplementary cementitious materials, inorganic polymers and catalysts. To maximise applicability, SOCRATES has selected four commonly available and chemically complementary residue families: (1) flotation tailings from primary Cu production, (2) Fe-rich sludges from Zn production, (3) fayalitic slags from non-ferrous metallurgy, and (4) bottom ashes from incineration plants. As a basis for a concerted effort to strengthen the EU’s critical-metal supply chain for Ge, In, Ga and Sb, SOCRATES trains 15 early-stage researchers (ESRs) in technological innovation: metal extraction (WP1), metal recovery (WP2), residual matrix valorisation (WP3) and integrated assessment (WP4). By training the ESRs in scientific, technical and soft skills, they are the next generation of highly employable scientists and engineers in the raw-materials sector.