TECNALIA RESEARCH & INNOVATION (TEC)

TECNALIA RESEARCH & INNOVATION is a private, independent, non-profit applied research centre of international excellence. Legally a Foundation, TECNALIA is the leading private and independent research and technology organisation in Spain and one of the largest in Europe, employing more than 1,400 people (287 PhDs) and with an income of 114 Million € in 2020.

Main tasks and responsibilities in the project:

TEC will investigate the electroleaching (ELX) technology (TRL4) for different types of spent heterogeneous catalysts. The process will rely on milder electrolytes (DES) and in-situ generated oxidants, which will avoid a number of unit operations and the use of reagents, improving the economics compared to the SoA technologies and reducing GHG emissions. TEC will tune different parameters to selectively dissolve critical metals from the solid materials, as part of the electrochemical toolbox in the recycling of the spent catalysts.

Furthermore, TEC will identify valorisation routes for the side streams generated in the project and will estimate the avoided environmental impact.