The Urban Mining Factory focuses on the sustainable and maximum recovery of (Critical) Raw Materials from Waste Printed Circuit Boards ('WPCBs') and builds on the foundation laid by Circular Industries. However, the technology configuration will be drastically changed. In the Netherlands there is no capacity available for new large entrants to the electricity grid. This grid congestion has arisen due to the energy transition and will continue for approximately 10 years. For this reason, we have eliminated the pyrometallurgical process steps, which require the most energy.
The pyrometallurgical steps were intended to remove impurities, so that the purest possible metal alloy can enter the hydrometallurgical process. These will be replaced by a series of mechanical separation steps, uniquely combined. The aim is to generate the purest possible mono-streams. Not only in the field of separating plastics, synthetic resins and glass fibers, but also with regard to the (Critical) Raw Materials. An advantage of this mechanical approach is that there are no CO2 emissions caused by flue gases. The UMF project will resume in the course of Q2 2025.
