The extraordinary properties of refractory metals, the unlikeliness of their future substitution and their use in booming industries will sustain a high EU demand for tungsten (W), niobium (Nb) and tantalum (Ta). Despite all three being classified as Critical Raw Materials (CRM) by the European Commission (EC), fractions of these indispensable metals are dissipated as by-products in mining waste streams as well as process scrap. To stimulate their recovery from such complex, low-grade resources, TARANTULA will develop a suite of cost-effective, scalable and eco-friendly – bio-, hydro-, iono-, solvo-, pyro- and electro-metallurgical – processes with high selectivity and recovery rates. These novel technologies, each representing an alternative for one or more process steps of state-of-the-art (SoA) processing lines, will form new routes towards market-ready metals, metal oxides and metal carbides. Flexibility will be the cornerstone of the overall process flowsheet to enable recovery of all three elements (W, Nb, Ta), thereby minimising the CAPEX required for future processing installations. Following systematic research and innovation activities at lab scale, the envisioned technologies will be brought to TRL3-5 and, based on performance, validated at prototype level by experienced industrial partners. In parallel, future by-product recovery will be supported by carrying out a comprehensive identification and assessment of existing un/underexploited secondary sources of W, Nb and Ta. The generated information – in compliance with all pertinent laws and regulations - will feed into the Raw Materials Information System (RMIS) which will boost the impact of the project far beyond the current consortium. Finally, TARANTULA will blueprint tailored Communication, Dissemination and Civil Society Engagement strategies with respect to obtaining and maintaining the “Social License to Operate” for future heavy-duty metallurgical processing.

The CRM Act, together with other EU policies towards the green and digital objetives of the CE, and the EU current context pose some challenges and needs to the extractive and processing industries: improve and facilitate access to raw materials and reduce EU dependency; increase circularity, ensure recycling into secondary raw materials and recovery from extractive waste; ann also, the mining and processing industry must be sustainable, thus competitive, socially responsible and efficient in terms of cost, reducing energy consumption and gas emissions. BLOOM aims to develop and demonstrate extraction and processing technologies to facilitate exploitation of the primary raw critical raw materials. For this, th ecollaboration with both Ukraine and Canada is envisioned 2 and 3 partners from these countries respectively); clustering activities are envisioned through key partners and a a business case and exploitation strategy. BLOOM will tackle the challenges through its Strategic Objective which is to facilitate exploitation of the primary CRM (minerals and metals only) for the EU to strengthen the EU supply chains, by increasing the efficiency on extraction and processing with a smart and modular solids analysis system consisting on an online mineral liberation analysis, which enables the integration on mining sites of advanced control loops in different stages of the processing, based on ML and AI techniques, or data-driven extraction operations based on accurate mineralogy information from the site. These actions are oriented to lowering the costs of extraction and processing, increasing the financial viability, thus also contributing to making profitable low-grade deposits, giving access to new supplies. BLOOM consortium is composed of a multidisciplinary group of 15 partners, from 4 European countries, 2 from Ukraine, 3 from Canada and 1 from Brazil, one of the resource-richer countries in the world and lead by UPC.