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 increasingly rapidly growing electric vehicles (EV) market results in higher growth rates in all the LIBs volume categories, from cradle to grave. This trend makes ever more urgent the boosting of battery recycling for several reasons, the most important ones being: i) the preservation of the environment, and ii) the development of a circular economy reducing the demand for virgin materials and the Europe’s dependence from third countries. All these crucial aspects need to be handled through the development of new recycling and re-use concepts, fostering demonstrable effects in terms of efficiency and sustainability. RENOVATE aims at developing and demonstrating new circular economy solutions for the European battery value-chain, targeting the re-use of 100% of in-specification cell fractions (e.g. metallic foil, graphite, electrolyte, fluorinated compounds and cathode active materials) within the battery value chain, fostering a closed-loop circular approach that can reduce battery material waste going to landfill, increase the availability of battery precursors in the European battery eco-system, and demonstrate new added-value business cases for recyclers and battery materials users. All recycled materials will be recovered over all potential streams (pre-customer scraps and End-of-Life products). The ultimate goal is to support the green and digital transformation of the European battery industry to increase its competitiveness and promote its just growth path. Holistic, flexible, and closed-loop processes for the recycling of EoL batteries based on both low and high energy density chemistries will be designed and validated to allow real and easily implementable “net zero carbon” process. A specific aim will also be smart re-integration of the side streams (e.g. waste chemicals/solvents) in the recycling processes and/or in in other industrial activities to minimize the residues coming from batteries production.