In August 2018, The Nanyang Technical University (NTU) and the French  Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) established a joint center in Singapore called  “Singapore CEA Alliance for Research in the Circular Economy” (SCARCE). For CEA this represents the first joint centre outside of France in which it is involved. 

With CEA's unique skills and world-renowned expertise in materials recycling, extensive industrial deployment for more than 40 years, these will complement NTU's excellence in R&D translation and innovation in high value-added industrial products. This collaboration stands to boost local R&D capabilities in e-waste management and recycling. 

The SCARCE aims to develop advanced technologies in sorting, dismantling, dissolution, separation and materials reuse processes in order to enable innovative solutions for the management of waste.

The centre will accentuate the concept of “urban mining”, mostly through novel deployments of extractive hydrometallurgical techniques for efficient and clean recovery and reuse of materials from recycled e-waste in particular and on other wastes in future projects. The programme aims to reach solutions and demonstrate the technological advances via lab scale pilots (1-10 kg/h) for every validated process steps, beyond the state of the art and relevant to the above e-wastes.

The centre’s research focus is 'Waste Recycling' with an aim  to develop advanced technologies in sorting, dismantling, dissolution, separation and materials reuse processes in order to enable innovative solutions for the management of waste. The initial focus of the SCARCE will be on e-waste and more specifically:

1.       Recycling of Lithium Ion Batteries
   
2.       Recycling of Silicon Solar Panels
   
3. ​​      Recycling and recovery of valuable metals from Printed Circuit Boards
   
4.       Detoxification and recycling of toxic plastics in E-waste