2018-03-27
A Brazilian delegation, in charge of the project "Study of the Productive Chains of Critical Materials: Opportunity and Threats of the Circular Economy", has participated from February 25th to March 2nd in meetings with European companies that operate in Brazil and nowadays are implementing practices of circular economy, and which also have products that depend on the metal niobium, considered a critical raw material by the European Commission, nevertheless strategic for Brazil.
Represented by Carlos Cesar Pieter, senior technologist at the Mineral Technology Centre (Cetem), research unit of the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communication (MCTIC) and responsible for the project, and Efigênia Rossi, PhD researcher in Environmental Engineering Sciences at the University of São Paulo Paulo (USP), the mission was supported by the EU-Brazil Sector Dialogues Support Facility.
The term circular economy is recent and has been adopted by the European Union through the European High-Efficiency Platform for Resource Efficiency (EREP) which brings together governments, companies and civil society organisations. Its purpose is to increase and optimise the consumption of natural resources, materials and energy, concepts of product design, remanufacturing, extension of useful life, reuse and recycling of materials.
Regarding critical materials, such as the case of niobium, Brazil has participated, along with other Latin American countries, in the EU-Latin America Dialogue on Raw Materials, in which has been discussing possible areas of cooperation in the field of exploration and mineral production, and the Mineral Technology Centre - CETEM/MCTIC and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Union has already discussed opportunities for cooperation in all these events.
The project
There is a mutual interest in investigating how a potential economic transition as it is today for the circular economy can open up opportunities and/or generate threats in important value chains. The main goal of the project is to study the value chains of Brazilian niobium in a scenario modelled on the concepts of the circular economy, evaluating the possible opportunities and critical points, so as to enable the improvement of trade and socio-environmental relations between Brazil and Europe, focusing on the consequences on the primary production of minerals considered strategic for Brazil however critical for the EU.
The mission
The series of meetings of the Brazilian mission began in Ispra, Italy, for a meeting with the technical manager of the Joint Research Center (JRC), Dr. Giovanni Andrea Blengini, and his team, to handle the implementation and joint planning of the project.
After they went to France, where Renault factory was visited, in order to know the unit that performs the remanufacture of engines and gearboxes, whose established business model can be used for car bodies in Brazilian industry. Next, the delegation also visited the automotive materials research centre at ArcelorMittal, a company in which niobium is an essential component for the steel used in various products of its customers: vehicle bodies, oil and gas pipelines, and structural steel for building.
The schedule was completed in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) when the participants went to visit Philips factory and know the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) disassembly unit where they recover some parts for use on new models. There, niobium is used in superconductors that generate the NMR magnetic field and are reused because their useful life is longer.
For Carlos Cesar Pieter, the interest shown by the companies visited and the attention given to the Brazilian delegation were significant for the continuity of the project. "The EU-Brazil Sector Dialogues Support Facility is bringing together groups of researchers who are interested in the same issues, albeit with their own perspectives from Europe and Brazil. We will be able to cooperatively expand the critical analysis of raw materials to Europe and look at threats and opportunities for Brazil without any constraints because we are all motivated by the perspectives that can be opened with the adoption of the circular economy."
Pieter adds also that the support of researchers from the EU JRC has been instrumental in the development of the project. "The research team will develop a new methodology for evaluating the situation of raw materials, but on the side of manufacturing countries, something similar to the criticality diagram developed by the JRC for the EU. In this new methodology will be analysed the situation of industrial segments that depend on them before scenarios in which the circular economy is introduced. They will also be evaluated from the point of view of threats and future opportunities."
According to the senior technologist at Cetem, the next step, after the mission, will be to forward to companies’ questionnaires about their future production models and plans within the circular economy.
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