Climate change is one of the greatest challenges faced by humankind. Fighting global warming is critically dependent on the rapid implementation of a green transition to which the European Union is fully committed through the European Green Deal. Climate action is at the heart of this ambitious package of measures, which are heavily reliant on European supply of raw materials and on the circular feed of supply chains in strategic industry.

The START project is totally aligned with the Green Deal objectives as it proposes a unique technological solution, well beyond the state of the art: collect waste sulphides of the tetrahedrite series ((Cu,Fe)12Sb4S13) from deactivated mine dumps/tailing and current mining waste flows within EU to produce optimized p-type thermoelements for common thermoelectric (TE) generators able to harvest waste heat. This concept represents a major opportunity to increase resource productivity and to decrease resource dependence and waste in line with the new Circular Economy Action Plan.