Riina Aav

This Centre of Excellence (CoE) focuses on fostering innovation in resource efficiency, promoting circular economy practices, utilizing local resources, ensuring safe material circulation, and educating researchers to reduce environmental impacts. It centers around four key areas: Strategic Mineral Resources (SMR), Carbon-Based Resources (CBR), Circular Technologies Upscaling (CTU), and Circular Business Eco-System and Modeling (CBEM). The SMR group maps critical materials in waste streams, including renewables, for extraction and reuse while minimizing hazardous waste. The CBR group develops ecofriendly pathways for essential chemicals and plastics, also assessing their environmental impact. The CTU group pioneers waste reduction and recycling methods for aqueous, and solid waste, incl. water purification. The CBEM group analyzes sustainable business ecosystems and value chains. This CoE's interdisciplinary approach will benefit both Estonia and Europe by advancing circular economy.

The project focuses on developing technologies for the separation of valuable components from intermediate products of ore enrichment and used magnets that are supplied to Estonia or potentially supplied. The emphasis is on characterizing the best possible raw materials, intermediates, and products during the development of separation technologies. This includes favoring liquid-assisted mechanochemical processes through the selective formation of metal-organic complexes and adhering to the principles of circular and green chemistry. The objectives of the project are: a) analysis of samples generated from the recycling of ores and their enriched intermediate products, as well as magnets containing metals; b) development and valorization of separation technologies for rare earth metals, utilizing mechanochemical methods and metal-organic complexes; c) evaluating the sustainability of the developed processes using the metrics of green chemistry

The infrastructure brings together the capabilities in chemical synthesis, chemical and biotechnology in Estonia. Its primary goal is the development and technologization of new sustainable and environmentally friendly synthesis methods, such as mechanosynthesis, flow chemistry, electrochemistry, photochemistry, and organocatalysis. New chemical methods (using enzymes, ionic liquids, and metal-organic frameworks) creates new opportunities for obtaining complex natural compounds. To ensure the sustainability of methods and materials, safety studies are conducted. The shared use of the infrastructure initiates new interdisciplinary projects and creates prerequisites for innovation and collaboration with research-intensive companies. Involving the use of infrastructure at all levels of higher education and in micro-degree programs ensures continuity in science and a qualified personnel for entrepreneurship.