From batteries to wind turbines, European industry depends on materials sourced from around the world. EU-funded researchers are mapping these complex supply chains to spot potential disruptions before they become shortages.
By Anthony King
In the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping of oil and gas has been disrupted by the conflict in Iran. This also exposed a less obvious vulnerability hidden in the global trade in critical raw materials that are essential to modern technologies.
Take synthetic graphite, an important material for lithium-ion batteries, made from a carbon-rich by-product of oil refining. Much of it is shipped to China for processing into battery materials used in products ranging from consumer electronics to electric vehicles. Like oil and gas, that journey depends on shipping routes just as exposed to global upheaval.
Knowing that a disruption has happened is not enough for European companies. They need to know whether it might affect the products they make, buy or sell – and whether alternative sources are available. The trouble is that the supply chains behind many of these raw materials are notoriously tangled.
“The supply chains behind many products and materials are very complex and global,” said Christian Thies, a supply chain expert at Hamburg University of Technology in Germany. “For consumers and for companies, it is really difficult to understand where everything comes from.”
Thies is a member of the four-year EU-funded research initiative MaaSiveTwin trying to make sense of this global puzzle. A research team from Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Poland, Serbia and Switzerland is mapping where critical materials come from, how they reach Europe and where the weak points in the supply chain might be.
The ultimate goal is to move from simply knowing where materials come from to anticipating problems before they hit European industry.
Supply chains for batteries may seem remote and unimportant – until something goes wrong. Then shortages can halt production and prices can soar, as was the case for many goods during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Europe relies heavily on other countries for many of the raw materials used in batteries and other critical technologies, including cobalt, nickel, manganese, lithium and graphite.
More than half of the world’s cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, while China processes around 90 per cent of battery-grade graphite, more than half of high-purity manganese and more than 75 per cent of rare earth elements. Rare earths are particularly important for permanent magnets used in technologies, including wind turbines and electric motors.
“China dominates the refining of lots of critical materials,” said Dr Susana Darma, a chemist and analyst at Battronics, a European consultancy specialising in battery materials. “We have increased demand for these materials in Europe and we need many of them for electric mobility, wind energy and defence.”
Darma is working alongside Thies in the MaaSiveTwin team to trace how critical materials move and where the supply chain is most exposed. For some materials, the researchers can already build up a remarkably detailed picture.
“Our data coverage for battery-grade graphite is 90 per cent,” said Darma. “So we know the location of mining or where synthetic graphite is made, and we can see how it gets to Europe.”
Finding that information, though, is not straightforward. Details about where materials are mined, processed and turned into components can be scattered across company, trade and government reports.
“There are a lot of puzzle pieces,” said Dr Aura Tolosa, a chemical engineer and analyst at Battronics. “We use publicly available data, but it is complex to read.”
The MaaSiveTwin team is using AI to search large volumes of publicly available information and extract useful details. It is also exploring satellite imagery to estimate activity at mining sites.
The researchers are combining this information in digital twins – computer-based representations of real-world supply chains and industrial sites.
“We have created digital twins to represent the physical world,” explained Dr Marios Antonakakis, a researcher at the Technical University of Crete. “For example, we mapped several mining sites and simulated what is happening and what could happen.”
By bringing together information on production, transport, prices and demand, the researchers aim to forecast potential shortages and price changes affecting materials used in technologies such as batteries and permanent magnets.
“After we make sense of all this supply chain data, we will know exactly how much is being produced, where it is being produced and how it is being transported,” said Tolosa. “From this knowledge, we can foresee effects from specific events.”
That could give companies more time to respond, by finding alternative suppliers, adjusting production or looking for different materials.
“The challenge is to collect the data, then to understand the data, and next to monitor the data to see trends,” said Antonakakis.
The EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act of 2024 seeks to boost a domestic, diversified and sustainable supply chain of essential minerals and metals. Other objectives include reducing dependency on single-country suppliers, such as China, and protecting European industries against export bans and supply chain shocks, whether from wars, drought, trade tensions or pandemics.
The Act sets specific targets. By 2030, the EU intends to extract at least 10 per cent of its annual consumption of strategic raw materials, process at least 40 per cent and recycle at least 25 per cent. It also wants to ensure that no more than 65 per cent of annual consumption of any strategic raw material comes from a single third country.
A separate scientific opinion for the European Commission, published this year by its Group of Chief Scientific Advisors on advanced materials, reached a similar conclusion, urging Europe to secure access to critical raw materials alongside affordable green energy.
The EU is also looking at ways to secure supplies more directly. The Commission has proposed a new European Corporation on Critical Raw Materials to help procure and stockpile materials needed by European industry, from batteries and clean technologies to defence.
Recent events have shown why diversification matters. In 2024, China introduced export controls on antimony, a metal used in applications ranging from ammunition and infrared sensors to precision optics. In 2025, Beijing tightened controls on some rare earth elements and related products and technologies.
“For all EU goals on electric mobility, on wind energy, and for other industries, including defence, we need critical raw materials,” said Tolosa. “We have increased demand for them, but China is already controlling 90 per cent of the refining of these materials.”
Europe is responding by seeking supplies from partner countries, including Australia, Chile and Canada, while also trying to increase mining, processing and recycling within the EU.
For Thies, the lesson is that understanding these complex networks is a prerequisite for making them more resilient.
“If we consider where the materials we need to build batteries currently come from, we see only a small fraction originating from the EU,” he said. “Most of the materials are sourced from outside the EU and that is a strategic risk.”
This article was originally published in Horizon, the EU Research and Innovation Magazine.