Etienne Bouyer

Abstract:

Climate change involves energy transitions in most of the industrial countries, leading simultaneously to a reduction of fossil energy consumption and to an increase of low carbon energies supply. In this coming energy mix, novel devices and systems are emerging for both production, conversion, storage, recovery and transportation of energy. New technologies for energy need critical raw materials (CRM) also known as “vitamins for the high tech” to fulfill their specific functional properties. A crucial point is to work on the design of materials to components with low content of CRM or even without CRM at all that are replaced. For the end of life products and production waste, one has to pay attention to the recovery and valorization of CRM. These actions, their viability are strongly dependent on the raw materials costs and their fluctuations. The presentation will focus on several examples: Li-ion & Ni-MH batteries, Fuel cells, photovoltaic cells and permanent magnets. It will show how those components would enter in the circular economy. Recycling covers several technical steps (waste & EoL preparation, sorting, mechanical/physical separation, recovery, and valorization) some of them will be illustrated using the above mentioned examples. Finally, the presentation will show the different available instrument at the European level supporting research, development & innovation on recycling and more broadly on material efficiency all along the component life.