As Europe accelerates its transition to a green and digital economy, securing a stable supply of critical raw materials (CRMs) has become a pressing concern.
Materials like lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements are indispensable for technologies such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, and semiconductors.
However, with a significant portion of these resources imported from a limited number of countries, including China, the EU faces vulnerabilities in its supply chains.
To mitigate these risks, the European Union is increasingly investing in “urban mining” – the process of reclaiming valuable metals from electronic waste and end-of-life products.
This approach not only reduces dependency on external sources but also aligns with the EU’s sustainability goals.
A notable initiative in this domain is the iBot4CRMs project, launched in December 2024.
Funded by the EU’s Horizon Europe program with a budget of €9.5 million, the four-year project aims to develop AI-powered robotic systems capable of efficiently identifying, dismantling, and extracting CRMs from urban waste.
These advanced robots are designed to handle complex tasks, such as retrieving neodymium magnets from electric motors and recovering metals like copper, gold, and silver from discarded electronics.
(Read our story, Apple unveils ‘Daisy’, the robot that can disassemble iPhones to reclaim precious metals.)
The IBot4CRMs project brings together 18 partners from eight European countries, encompassing technology developers, recycling experts, manufacturers, and researchers.
Four large-scale pilot programs are under way:
- in Turkey, robots are extracting neodymium magnets from dismantled electric motors;
- in Greece, robotic systems are dismantling desktops to recover valuable components;
- in Spain, efforts focus on retrieving CRMs from metal scraps; and
- in Portugal, robots aim to recover CRMs from incineration slag and urban waste.
By harnessing urban mining and advanced robotics, iBot4CRMs seeks to bolster Europe’s resilience in the supply of critical raw materials, reduce environmental impact, and contribute to the objectives outlined in the Critical Raw Materials Act and the European Green Deal.
More about the IBot4CRMs project
The Innovation project IBot4CRMs harnesses AI-powered, self-learning robots for urban mining to complement primary sources of Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) and strengthen their supply resilience and competitiveness in Europe.
Critical raw materials (CRMs) are essential for sustainable technology, yet Europe depends heavily on a few remote primary sources, leaving the supply chain exposed to disruptions.
With a current recycling rate of less than 1 percent for rare earth elements and a Waste from Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) collection rate of just 40.6 percent, well below the 65 percent target, urban mining presents a promising alternative and complementary source of critical raw materials.
To address this opportunity, iBot4CRMs is developing integrated AI-powered robotic systems designed to maximise the recovery and recycling of critical raw materials like neodymium magnets, copper, gold, and silver from urban waste.
The project will demonstrate how integrating AI, data analytics, and robotics can enhance recycling processes for Urban Waste, Incineration Slag, Metal Scraps, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), and Electric Vehicles (EVs).
It will do so through seven validation scenarios carried out at four large-scale pilot sites in Turkey, Greece, Spain, and Portugal.
This approach not only enables real-world validation but also paves the way for a cost-effective business strategy for large-scale deployment.
Critical raw materials are especially important as they enable many modern and future sustainable technologies that drive the decarbonisation of our value chains.
By strengthening Europe’s resilience and competitiveness in the supply of CRMs, this project aims to address the challenges outlined in the Critical Raw Materials Act and the European Green Deal.
IBot4CRMs comprises 18 partner organisations from across Europe. The multidisciplinary nature of the consortium is one of its strengths, combining providers of state-of-the-art technology and sensors with active and innovative players in the recovery of valuable materials and recycling in real commercial use cases.
Led by the NORCE, the four-year Horizon Europe Innovation project kicked off with an initial gathering in Kristiansand, Norway, in January 2024.
