National funded projects

• MICS - AMELIE

  New approaches to recovery criticAl MEtals from spent LIthium-ions battEries - AMELIE

  To enable a major shift to bring transportation and power to greenhouse gas neutrality the coupling of both sectors for the first time in history is mandatory: batteries can enable 30% of the required reductions in carbon emissions in the transport and power sectors. However, the supply of raw metals for batteries is precarious because of the limited natural reserves of several raw materials and their local distribution. This may represent a problem for Italy, having limited natural resources to realise the structural change in the mobility sector. Moreover, this may also be an opportunity to find strategies for the use of secondary materials. This can be obtained by the development of technologies that can stably secure strategic metals, based, for example, on urban mining, to extract metals from secondary sources. However, at the moment, the waste recovery processes of battery wastes are complicated and require high resource consumption in terms of energies and chemicals necessary for metal extraction. The AMELIE project introduces innovative approaches to provide an alternative route to respond to the increasing demand for raw materials for batteries, guarantee a second life to the corresponding waste, and secure closed-loop, sustainable, inclusive processes. The project is mainly based on 3 new technologies proposed by the different partners for metals recovery and a new technology for exhaust fumes treatment, all at low TRL (three of the new technologies are also patented). Great attention is devoted to the waste recovery supply chain, materials selection, sustainability of the proposed technologies, and modelling and optimization of the manufacturing and de-manufacturing process. Human-centric solutions for the waste batteries recovery context will be also evaluated. In addition, all the aspects related to the material flows will be considered in order to design a process that can be sustainable according to the Triple Bottom Line approach, from a logistics point of view. Thus, not only the environmental aspect will be considered, but the economic and social ones too. To this end, the different scenarios will be developed and in turn, evaluated to assess their feasibility. The AMELIE project aims at reaching the new 2030 regulatory targets proposed by the EU on batteries waste, with more than 95% of lithium and cobalt recovery in a sustainable way, translating the EU’s sustainable development goals into innovative technologies. In this frame, great attention will be devoted to the development of a battery e-passport, in accordance with the legislative requirement. This will also drive the development of a national market for spent batteries, which are currently sent abroad and not recycled in Italy, supporting the circular economy.

• MISE - H2ICE

  Piattaforma motore a combustione interna alimentato a idrogeno (H2 ICE)

  01/07/2022 - 30/06/2025

  L’ambito tecnologico in cui cade il progetto “Piattaforma motore a combustione interna alimentato a idrogeno (H2 ICE)” è quello delle propulsioni alternative a zero impatto emissivo e di rapida implementazione produttiva a costi sostenibili. La capacità di fornire una rapida implementazione da parte del progetto è legata al fatto che da un lato la soluzione tecnologica ideata sfrutterebbe l’intera filiera produttiva dei motori a combustione interna e dall’altro eliminerebbe le emissioni di composti a effetto serra minimizzando la sola emissione residua di ossidi di azoto grazie alla tipologia di combustione e ai sottosistemi adottati ad hoc per l’idrogeno. Inoltre, le applicazioni considerate nel progetto sono orientate ad ambiti ancora poco esplorati ma ad elevato potenziale di sviluppo come la cogenerazione