The increasing need to find alternative energy sources, combined with the general urgency to decarbonise the way we produce, store and consume in order to meet the EU's climate and sustainability targets, is stimulating a massive and rapid use of critical raw materials, which are fundamental to the production of electrical and electronic equipment and batteries, pillars of the green and digital transition that the EU is called upon to achieve. The challenges are increasingly important given the rapidly changing geopolitical environment. AutoMat is responding to these cross-cutting and urgent challenges through the timely introduction of disruptive, holistic, circular and sustainable target-driven concepts and solutions, driven by the implementation of the following key aspects: i) High value-added recycling technologies, mainly focused on preparing batteries and EEE components (battery packs, modules, cells, parts and materials) for re-use, through the most advanced collaborative-adaptive and flexible disassembly, sorting and material recovery technologies and integrated solutions, in order to drastically reduce the amount of non-reusable parts and materials, and to return to the market with new products (including chemicals) able to meet the needs of the market ii) Transversal digitisation of solutions towards a multi-level and continuous digital data exchange and elaboration able to support new strategies of advanced and compliant separate collection to increase the quality and availability of target streams, support in real time the efficiency of recycling-reuse processes through the homogenisation of external inputs, provide always personalised and predictive information on the most appropriate operations to be applied, aiming at a massive reduction of risks and waste during handling, collection and recycling operations, provide digital passports to second life applications, to strengthen the efficiency of the outputs coming from the AutoMat global value chain.

The battery, although central to the green transition of road transport, currently suffers from a supply chain that lacks traceability, sustainability, resiliency, and circularity. Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) are essential for battery manufacturing. The explosive growth of electric vehicles, driven by climate neutrality policy objectives, will pressure the CRM supply chain and increase EU dependency on third countries, resulting in decreased competitiveness for EU automotive and battery manufacturers. Implementing the digital battery passport (DBP) concept in the battery value chain could resolve these issues. The main goal of the BASE project is to develop, validate, and implement a working DBP service, as mandated by the “Regulation.” This will be achieved by exploiting data collected through a number of constantly evolving tools and methods, ensuring a transparent, secure, and cost-efficient platform operation, while also catalyzing the growth of circular businesses. BASE will develop transparent methodologies to calculate battery performance and ESGE indicators, ensuring traceability down to the CRM level throughout the entire battery value chain. In the physical domain, this will be achieved through the mass balancing approach. On the data management side, by exploiting distributed ledger technology, BASE will ensure built-in data authenticity verification along the value chain, with no data duplication, avoiding data manipulation, assuring privacy by design, and promoting data interoperability. The DBP will provide up-to-date and accurate data on battery performance indicators, remaining useful life, dismantling, material composition, and safety. This will allow for an increase in the useful service life of batteries and more efficient recycling, which will enhance resource efficiency, reduce waste, and decrease EU dependency on CRMs from third countries. The applicability of the DBP will be demonstrated through four pilot use cases.

BATRAW main objective is to develop and demonstrate two innovative pilot systems for sustainable recycling and end of life management of EV batteries, domestic batteries, and battery scraps contributing to the generation of secondary streams of strategically important CRMs and battery RMs. The first pilot will deliver innovative technologies and processes for dismantling of battery packs achieving recovery of 95% of battery pack components and separating waste streams including cells and modules by semi-automated processes for recycling. BATRAW's second pilot will scale and demonstrate efficient pre-treatment and continuous hydrometallurgical recycling of battery cells and modules including innovative steps for C-graphite, Al and Cu separation from black mass and Mn extraction, achieving a recovery of the full range of battery RMs (Co, Ni, Mn, Li, C-graphite, Al and Cu) at selectivity of 90-98%. Innovations wil be scaled and demonstrated in a pilot systems with recycling capacity of 1 ton lithium-ion battery (LIB) packs dismantled per shift (8 hours) and treat 300 kg BM per day. BATRAW outcomes are of strategic importance within the prospects of the exponentially growing EU battery market and reducing EU import dependency of CRMs. The project will further promote the overall sustainability and circularity of battery products and raw materials by developing new procedures for battery repair and reuse, enabling faster diagnostics and conversion of EV packs into second life batteries, delivering eco-design guidelines for battery manufacturing, demonstrating blockchain platform for raw material tracking and supply chain transparency (Battery Passport) and delivering guidelines for safe transports and handling of battery waste. The project aims to maximize market uptake and impact through ambitious C&D&E plan including circular business models, innovations workshops, dissemination in EU platforms, policy briefs and other strategies to reach markets and stakeholders.

The 2021 EPBD recast highlights buildings' central role in the energy transition towards an integrated and renewable energy-based EU energy system. Smarter buildings will support the digitalisation and decarbonisation transition to the benefit of building occupants, owners and the energy system. Improving energy performance and reducing energy demands are even more relevant in the context of the REPowerEU Plan to rapidly reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels and accelerate the green transition. BuildON seeks to develop a highly replicable, generic solution to deliver intelligent building services, facilitate the integration of heterogeneous systems and technologies, and help Build the next generatiON of Smart buildings. The main objective of BuildON is to develop and demonstrate a Smart Transformer Toolbox at TRL8 to plan and achieve improved energy performance applicable to the broadest range of building typologies and smart readiness levels via a comprehensive demonstration campaign involving five representative real-life use cases. This toolbox will offer affordable, adaptative, close-to-market and easy-to-install SRI-aligned services to continuously Monitor, Assess, Predict and Optimise (MAPO services) a building’s performance. A unified representation of the building, exposed through a Universal Building API, will abstract all field-level communication complexity, allowing the energy devices’ homogeneous real-time monitoring and control. Moreover, the generation of (Maturity Level 3 and 4) Digital Twins will allow simulation and control of a building and its systems. User-friendly decision support and user empowerment tools for facility managers and occupants will be part of the toolbox to explore, understand and expand their buildings' smart capabilities. By providing a unified approach to interacting with buildings, the floor is offered to develop a building app store that significantly accelerates the Smart Transformation of existing and new buildings

AEGIR’s main objective is to demonstrate a scalable, industrialised, smart, non-intrusive, quick, and affordable four-packaged renovation solution to boost the take up of deep retrofitting achieving nearly zerAEGIR main objective is to demonstrate a physical and digital sustainable framework that boosts the take up of deep retrofitting achieving nearly zero energy buildings. This approach is supported by (i) innovative, industrialized, high performance and non-intrusive multifunctional plug-and-play envelope solutions to increase the use of locally deployed renewable technologies. These solutions can also be modulated depending on the requirements of the target buildings. (ii) A digital ecosystem of services to improve the whole construction workflow (from design, manufacturing, construction, and operation) reducing costs with a sustainable approach. And (iii) a socio-economic model providing financial schemes and business models at building scale. To demonstrate these objectives the project will deploy all these solutions in four demos (Spain, France, Denmark, and Romania) mixing the retrofitting actions which will use the solutions in four different climates. The demos combine different building typologies (multi-family buildings, educational buildings, offices, and single-family buildings) to proof the concept in buildings and tenants with different requirements. One of the demos (Denmark) is social housing so the intention of the project is to demonstrate that these solutions are feasible for the more demanding public. A second demo is a public school to demonstrate the improved air quality and comfort provided by the solution to solve many of the air quality/ventilation problems in this type of buildings. The project involves all the actors from the construction and energy management value chain with local and international SMEs, large companies, public authorities. Local and international clusters are also included to verify the developments at European level.