Plat’Inn: bridging the gap between the laboratory and industrial production to help develop the circular economy

Plat’Inn is designed to support the development of ecotechnologies for primary and secondary mineral resource processing and waste recycling. With capacities ranging from a few dozen kilograms to nearly 5 tonnes, Plat'Inn caters for the pilot stage through to the semi-industrial stage, the final step before industrialisation of the processes developed. 

Plat'Inn, the outcome of the redeployment and reinforcement, over 1000 m², of the BRGM's experimental facility, received 2M€ in investments, supported by the Centre-Val de Loire Region and Orléans Métropole, which enabled it to acquire latest-generation equipment for materials processing and recycling. 

Thirty ongoing projects 

Plat’Inn offers different multi-scale mineralurgy/metallurgy equipment allowing both dry and wet treatments (crushing/ grinding, shredding, sampling, physico-chemical screening, thermal treatments, hydrometallurgical processes).  The platform is also designed to strengthen  BRGM excellence in fields such as  biolixiviation (metals extraction by biological methods), electro-fragmentation and microwave technology (embrittlement and selective separation) and flotation (concentration). It also provides tools for process modelling and environmental assessments (LCA: life cycle analyses). 

Some thirty projects are currently running in what is best described as an industrial-scale laboratory. They are the outcome of the BRGM's own research and experimentation programmes, its participation in French (ANR) and European H2020) collaborative RDI programmes and its numerous industrial partnerships. These projects focus more specifically on recycling and reusing mining and industrial waste, demolition waste and waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and other end-of-life products.