In the last five years, the global economy has consumed 500 gigatonnes of materials, equivalent to 28% of the total materials consumed by humanity since 1900, according to the latest The Circularity Gap Report. Far from shrinking, demand for certain materials is skyrocketing. This is the case of minerals considered critical for the energy transition. Specifically, the International Energy Agency estimates that between 2017 and 2022, demand for lithium tripled, demand for cobalt increased by 70%, and demand for nickel grew by 40%. To the increase in demand we must add the setbacks in terms of recyclability or reuse, with a world that today is 21% less circular than in 2018.
The global economy has a raw materials problem, and countries and companies are increasingly aware of it. In March 2023, the European Commission presented its proposal for a European law on critical raw materials, which aims to “ensure a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials for European industry and significantly reduce dependence on the EU.” Companies, for their part, “have increased their R&D efforts to find more efficient and abundant materials in nature that are also reusable, renewable or biodegradable,” says Ricard Jiménez Buendía, scientific director of the industrial area of ??the technology center. Eurecat.
“Research to find alternatives to plastic of fossil origin is one of the areas that arouses the most interest,” says Emilio Jiménez Piqué, professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. By sectors, the Eurecat expert agrees in pointing out the packaging industry (due to its dependence on plastic) along with the automotive industry, as two of the fields that are making the most efforts in R&D in new materials.
Not in vain, electric mobility dominates the demand for metals and is responsible for between 54% and 58% of the accumulated demand for aluminum and copper, 73%-92% of manganese, cobalt, nickel and lithium, and 79% of dysprosium and neodymium between 2020 and 2050, according to data from the environmental organization Friends of the Earth.
The construction sector is another major consumer of materials. Transparent wood, self-healing concrete, airgel (a synthetic, porous and ultra-light material composed of 99.8% air), flexible and malleable concrete or hemp are some of the disruptive materials that are gradually positioning themselves in the market, according to PlanRadar, a European platform for the management of documentation, processes and communication in the construction and real estate sector.
Another great field of interest is that of renewable energies. The UPC professor explains that some of the most promising materials in this area are zirconium ceramics for hydrogen generation, solid-state batteries to replace current electric batteries, and perovskites for use in photovoltaic solar panels in place of silicon. Jiménez Piqué points out that all these materials have in common that they are more efficient than their predecessors, which would reduce final demand.
It is also worth highlighting the ongoing research to use cellulose from forest waste (branches, bushes, pruning remains, etc.). “If this material is finally managed to be sold, it could be the origin of an important industry in Catalonia, which has 65% of forest area,” says Ricard Jiménez Buendía. But there is a second part: “After discovering a new material, we must invent a production process on an industrial scale that is viable from an economic and environmental point of view,” warns the Eurecat scientist.
