Material and Digital Traceability for the Certification of Critical Raw Materials (MaDiTraCe)

Introduction

The project’s goal is to ensure sustainable and transparent mineral supply chains for four critical raw materials for the EU, based on commonly accepted environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices. The project focuses on materials essential for the energy transition: lithium, cobalt, and natural graphite, which are used in batteries, as well as rare earth elements (REE) used in magnets. Digital and inherent compositional traceability methods for these materials will be developed.

Traceability enables drawing conclusions about the origin of the raw material. Composition-based traceability often provides a general boundary. However, micro-particles added to the concentrate can more definitively demonstrate that the material originates from the claimed source. This way, raw materials procured from an ESG-certified producer can be verified to comply with the certification up to a certain stage in the value chain. The preservation of origin information depends on the material, its processing methods, and the traceability methods used.

GTK specifically investigates the traceability of cobalt, lithium, and graphite in Finnish value chains and leads the research on traceability based on added micro-particles.

Partners: French Geological Survey (FR), DMT Group (DE), Geologian tutkimuskeksus (FI), Montanuniversität Leoben (AT), Ghent University (BE), EIT Raw Materials (DE), LGI Sustainable Innovation (FR), Iberian Sustainable Mining Cluster (ES), French Alternative Energies & Atomic Energy Commission (FR), Alfred H Knight (UK), Foundation for Technological Development and Innovation (ES), Leiden University (NL), Metso Outotec (FI), Spherity (DE)

The coordinator of the project: French Geological Survey (FR)

Funding authority: European Commission / Horizon Europe

Contact persons: Jussi Pokki and Quentin Dehaine

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