Developing our activities in the metals used in the energy transition, decarbonizing production, producing faster and better, proposing innovative sustainable solutions and preparing Eramet's future... From mining to metals, our research and innovation experts invent value-creating solutions in response to the challenges facing our industry.
Based in Trappes, France, Eramet Ideas is staffed by experts who work closely with site-based operational teams. Eramet Ideas has expertise in mining, extractive metallurgy and recycling, and helps to improve the Group’s short-term operating performance, while developing long-term projects in support of the strategic roadmap.
Eramet Ideas is made up of multicultural, multi-disciplinary teams who harness their expertise in geometallurgy (mining of complex deposits based on mineralogical, environmental and operational data), hydrometallurgy (ore recovery using chemical solutions) and pyrometallurgy (ore recovery using ultra-high temperature smelting and reduction) to optimize existing processes, develop new deposits and devise disruptive solutions.
Eramet Ideas is also the Group’s talent incubator, bringing together experts and young graduates.
For the past four years, Eramet Ideas has been rebuilding itself as an open innovation center based on a commitment to partnerships with institutes, universities, startups and industrial partners.
This approach accelerates the generation of new ideas and access to rare skills, at the same time as pooling risks and sharing costs.
Since 2019, Eramet Ideas has been inviting startups and SMEs from around the world to take part in Open Innovation challenges focused on issues such as safety, responsible mining, digitalization. Each year, more than fifty participants take part, with the winning project receiving funding to test its solution in the field, and potentially roll it out on a larger scale across the Group’s various sites.
Startup Unusuals won the 2022 challenge with a solution using AI and data processing to automate maintenance and detect anomalies in order to reduce incidents on our railroads.
The solution will be tested over in the course of 2023 by Setrag in Gabon.
This center of excellence boasts state-of-the-art tools such as France’s first scanning electron microscope (SEM), equipped with QEMSCAN mineralogical analysis software, as well as pilot and semi-industrial facilities for conducting experimental campaigns on scales ranging from grams to tons. These experimental tools are enhanced by their digital twins ̶ mineralogy, data science, 3D modeling and design.
Our research teams work hand in hand with their colleagues in the field on short, medium and long-term innovation programs.
The Centenario project in Argentina is based on a high-performance direct lithium extraction process developed by Eramet Ideas in association with IFP Énergies nouvelles (IFPEN). This process offers a number of advantages over the conventional lagoon process, including double the extraction yield, reduced overall water consumption and a production time that can be measured in days rather than months.
The ReLieVe project for recycling lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles was launched in the Eramet Ideas laboratories. A demonstrator is currently being built on the Trappes site. The aim is to validate the efficiency and robustness of the Eramet process on a pre-industrial scale.
Eramet’s roadmap for reducing CO2 emissions depends mainly on decarbonizing ferroalloy production. The first lever is the substitution of fossil-based reducing agents by biomass-based reducing agents. Major R&D efforts are being deployed to characterize and understand these new types of materials, assess their durability and production performance, and carry out substitution tests on a pilot and industrial scale.
169
employees (37% women and 63% men) representing 14 different nationalities
3
pilot halls and associated laboratories for mineralurgy, hydrometallurgy and pyrometallurgy
28
subsidized joint projects in Europe since 2016, of which 5 have led to major breakthroughs for the Group while 1 is currently in the process of going into production
150
high-potential Group startups
Our subsidiaries around the world
