ABOUT

Both the European Union and the Finnish Government have recently recognized the strategic importance and enormous business potential of metals related to energy storage, specifically lithium-ion batteries and their value chain. As the battery industry is currently dominated by Asian-based conglomerates, there is a real risk that Europe is missing out on new business opportunities, whilst simultaneously becoming ever more dependent on the foreign supply of both raw materials and end products. As far as Finland is concerned, the Finnish mining sector is producing battery metals like copper, nickel, cobalt and zinc, and the metallurgical industries are refining raw materials sourced both domestically and imported from worldwide. In 2015, it was estimated that the revenue of the battery metal related industries was about 600 M€ and the level is increasing year on year.

The key objective of the BATCircle project is to find ways of adding value to the battery metals sector. This will be achieved by more efficient screening and utilization of the domestic mineral resources, enhancement of the metal refining processes, more efficient recycling of battery metals, improved co-operation between the companies and research organizations as well as through the identification of new business opportunities between partners. The BATCircle consortium comprises four universities (Aalto, University of Oulu, University of Eastern Finland, Lappeenranta University of Technology), two research centres (GTK, VTT), eight large companies, 14 SMEs and two cities. The cooperation is expected to lead to the formation of a domestic battery metals ecosystem that follows the principles of circular economy.