One year ago the LIFE PCR project was busy relocating to a new demonstration facility at Botlek-Rotterdam. It was also around this time last year that the Covid-19 pandemic started to control our lives in Europe. Initially no one knew what the impact would be on our lives and on the project but according to the circumstances the LIFE PCR project did reasonably well. Some delays on the project were encountered due to difficult and slow contact with suppliers/vendors, and a higher level of absenteeism due to Covid-19 on the team. From April 2020 till now we have been running the leaching demonstration (phase 1) plant on our new location. During this operation we encountered a lot of ups and downs and improved the process significantly to ensure a better uptime of the plant.
Parallel to this operation we started with the engineering of the phase 2 demonstration line and are in the final phase of detailed engineering. All findings and lessons learned during demonstration 1 are included in the design of DEMO phase 2. The main equipment and all other works have been procured and from April 2021 we will start the construction phase. If everything proceeds according to the plan and no extra delay is encountered due to Covid-19 the phase 2 demonstration line will be ready for commissioning in July/August 2021. Next update will be during the construction phase.