RESQTOOL is a Horizon Europe project that will offer a sustainable and energy efficient solution for recycling and responsible supply of Critical Raw Materials (Co, W, Ta, Ti, Nb) from End of Life products in metal/wood cutting, construction and manufacturing industries by lowering the carbon footprint of Zinc Reclaim process and developing advanced hydro- and solvo-metallurgical chemical recycling based on agro-industrial waste-bioderived chemicals. 

Hardmetals (HM) form nowadays the backbone of the tool manufacturing industry with diverse applications and show a wide range in terms of combination of high hardness and toughness. This makes them suitable for many wear applications such as machining of metallic and non-metallic materials, chipless forming, mining, industrial nozzles and wear parts, dental and medical tools, paper, plastic and textile knives, guide rolls, seal rings, tire studs, forestry and agriculture tools, earth moving and consolidation tools, plus many others.

METHODOLOGY

RESQTOOL will identify HM scrap sources by their initial Industry uses. This will serve for identification of a certain recycling code for each group to be used in determining their recycling scheme. Then sampling protocols and methodologies to quantify CRM resources in specific products will be setup and used to collect HM scrap samples from the entire EU zone. Collected materials will be investigated to determine the size and shape distribution, elemental composition, origin, mass, and other physical parameters important for its segregation and recycling. Every group will be forwarded to a certain recycling scheme

IMPACT

  • Higher re-use of raw materials and resources with reduced environmental impact and lower costs as demonstrated by Life Cycle Assessment
  • Responsible supply of critical raw materials to Europe in line with the EU principles for sustainable raw materials through application of a circular economy
  • Contributing to EU climate neutrality objectives by decreasing level of resource and energy consumption leading to a lower CO2 footprint
  • Increase productivity, innovation capacity, resilience, sustainability and global competitiveness of European energy intensive industries
  • Determination of requirements for sustainable critical raw materials recovery and processing in Europe in terms of social, environmental and economic performance
  • Contributing, change to contribution; CO2
  • Increase of productivity

Project number: 101138144

Project name: Recycling of High Quality CRM Resources from Machining Tools for Re-use Applications

Project acronym: RESQTOOL

Topic: HORIZON-CL4-2023-RESILIENCE-01-05

Type of action: HORIZON EUROPE – Innovation Actions

Granting authority: European Health and Digital Executive Agency

DURATION: 4 Years

PERIOD: 01 December 2023 – 30 November 2027

BUDGET: 8,8 M€