6 12 Conclusions There is a theoretical potential for the nonferrous metals industry as a whole to reduce direct indirect GHG emissions beyond 90 compared to 1990 levels The most important mitigation will come from the decarbonisation of EU power production which alone would reduce total emissions from nonferrous metals production by 81 com pared to 1990 Further innovations such as the use of inert anodes in aluminium production electrifcation of smelters e g move to hydrometallurgical and electrifed pyrometallurgical processes fuelshifts to lower emitting or biobased inputs the use of noncarbon reducing agents in smelting higher efciency in furnaces and better process management systems including digitisation can lead to further important GHG reductions Important innovations will also be required in order to allow for efcient and climate friendly recovery incl of metals in residues and recycling of metals given that more and more difculttorecycle secondary materials will have to be processed in the future Nonferrous metals innovations will also help other sectors to decarbonise faster e g by using waste heat from metals production e g for district heating or by higher levels of power demand response However there are important conditions for the abovementioned transitions to tak e place Decarbonisation of EU power production happens outside of the nonferrous metals industry and can have a negative impact on the competitiveness of metals production through e g pass through of additional cost associated with deployment of higher levels of renewables and storage Nonferrous metals on the other hand can facilitate the transition to higher levels of variable renewable energy by maximising their load fe xibility in production This will require a mark et environment that allows such busi ness models to be proftable and must avoid additional grid fees for producers that ofer more variable loads Major breakthroughs in primary aluminium production e g inert anodes can have signifcant impact on emissions and energy use in aluminium production and by e xten sion for the whole NFM sector Important R D is also taking place outside of Europe Due to the important potential it is important to further focus and e xtend R D and support for pilot and demonstration of these technologies in Europe Some technologies are promising but not yet commercial or applied at industrial scale In particular the use of inert anodes in primary aluminium production CCUS and hy drogen as a reducing agent It will require dedicated and longterm R D investments Scaling up R D to pilot and demonstration plants is both capital and risk intensive Aalto University is developing an RFB based on the electrochemistry of copper This battery would be more costefective and scalable than stateoftheart vanadium RFBs The initial feasibility of the concept has been demonstrated and the basic principles patented in Finland by Aalto University L aboratoryscale multicell prototype stack s were designed and operated in a nationally funded project in 2016 Electrochemical efciency of 70 has been achieved in prototype systems that have been operated for over 1000 hours Cost projec tions indicate the possibility of reaching a price of EUR 150k Wh at relatively low production volumes of below 1 G Whyear 235 A similar innovation is pursued via zincbased air fow batteries The fuel for the system is zinc and air Because the air component of the fuel is obtained from the atmosphere and does not need to be stored within the system the solution is very compactThe power k W and energy k Wh can be scaled separately to service diferent applications Zinc as an anode fuel has an advantage over other metals due to its unique set of attributes which include a low equilibrium potential with respect to hydrogen electrochemical reversibility stability in aqueous electrolytes high specifc energy high volumetric energy density abun dance low cost environmental compatibility and ease of storage and handling 236 New less cobalt intense chemistry for Lithium Ion batteries NMC 811 Nick el Manganese Cobalt NMC cathodes have become mainstream inside Lithium ion batteries e g used in most electric vehicles Industry has been improving NMC technology by steadily increasing the nick el content in each cathode generation e g NMC 433 40 Ni 30 Mn 30 Co NMC 532 or the most recent NMC 622 The cells have higher capac ity and lower weight which means the battery pack s store more energy and have better driving range 237 The ne xt generation of cathodes will be NMC 811 a cathode composition with 80 nick el 10 manganese and 10 cobalt and is e xpected to be introduced over the ne xt years 238 Metal Organic Framework s MOFs advanced catalysis with metals Metalorganic framework s MOFs are highly crystalline porous architectures built up of inor ganic metal nodes connected via organic building units The enormous variability in both the organic and the inorganic moiety mak es these hybrid structures highly tuneable towards a large number of applications For e xample mix edmetal MOFs can be used as gas adsorbing and separating materials This technology can become highly relevant for carbon capture and utilization CCU as it shows promise in producing costefcient fuels from CO 2 239 235 Ibidem 236 Zin8 energy solutions 237 R esearchinterfaces 2018 238 Arcus C 2018 239 Energy P ost S tanford University 2019 and Service RF 2019 MET ALS IN A CLIMA TE NEUTRAL EUROPE A 2050 BL UEPRINT 63