DEScycle, an EIC Accelerator Winner, Leaches Gold From E-Waste

Only about a fifth of the world's e-waste is recycled each year, mainly in smelters, according to Resource Media, and that is where the gold, silver, palladium and copper in a discarded circuit board are usually recovered. DEScycle, the trading name of the London company Argo Natural Resources Limited, wants to dissolve those metals instead, in deep eutectic solvents: liquid salt mixtures first developed at the University of Leicester, which the company says can be recycled rather than consumed. Its EIC Accelerator project claims recovery of 99% of the metals in e-waste and greenhouse gas savings of up to 90% against today's e-waste recycling.

The EIC Accelerator selected the project at its 1 October 2025 cut-off for a grant-only award. CORDIS records an EU contribution of €2,499,999, signed by the Commission on 30 April 2026, for a project running from 1 June 2026 to 31 May 2028. Six weeks after it started, the company opened its first plant outside the laboratory, on Teesside. What that plant recovers, and at what cost, has not been published yet.

Solvents instead of smelters

A deep eutectic solvent is a mixture of two or more cheap salts and compounds that melts into a liquid at low temperature. Resource Media reported in 2022 that Leicester scientists first developed the solvents in the early 2000s and that they dissolve metals without toxic chemicals or high temperatures and can be reused. The CORDIS objective says the company licensed the background intellectual property from the university and has developed its own since 2020. Its 2025 accounts record an agreement with minimum royalty payments over ten years, without naming the other party.

The company calls the approach ionometallurgy. In a profile by Mining Technology, it says the solvent is not consumed the way acids are, water is recirculated, and the carbon intensity is an order of magnitude below smelting. The same profile lists the problems of moving from batch to semi-continuous operation: mass transfer, phase stability, solids handling, filtration, temperature control and corrosion. The solvent's composition is described as sensitive intellectual property. None of the recovery or emission figures has been published by a third party.

The business model is the second difference. Instead of shipping boards to one of the few large smelters, DEScycle's website describes modular units placed close to where scrap is generated, for recyclers, IT asset disposal firms and data centre operators. The CORDIS objective states that Europe has only three precious-metal e-waste recycling facilities.

A demonstration plant, and no published results

The Teesside plant opened in July 2026, letsrecycle.com reported on 13 July, with the local MP Anna Turley and Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen at the opening. The company says commissioning marks technology readiness level 7. Its first products are to be gold, copper, silver and palladium, with tin, iron and aluminium in development, and the feedstock is circuit boards from its joint venture partner GAP Group. A trial with Cisco, announced in April 2026, will run Cisco-derived boards through the plant to produce recovery data and a techno-economic assessment; no results had been reported by 4 November 2026.

The plant's size is reported inconsistently. letsrecycle.com gives 50 to 100 tonnes of material a year. Resource Recycling, the following day, gives about 5,000 pounds a year for the demo plant and attaches the 50 to 100 tons to a full-scale commercial facility. The filed accounts settle what it cost: £4,695,671 of plant and equipment under construction at 31 December 2025, with about £2.2 million more contracted.

What the EIC project promises

The project started in June 2026, so CORDIS shows no report, deliverable or result yet. Its objective is to replace smelting for circuit boards and data centre hardware and to add capacity to Europe's small number of precious-metal recyclers. Delivery is therefore too early to judge; the scorecard below lists what can be checked so far.

1. A plant beyond the laboratoryOpenedTeesside demonstration plant opened in July 2026, per letsrecycle.com and the plant value in the filed accounts.
2. 99% metal recoveryClaimStated in CORDIS and by the company; no plant data published.
3. Up to 90% lower emissionsClaimNo life-cycle assessment published; the company lists one as a next milestone.
4. A first commercial plantPlanned2028 per Mitsubishi in 2025, 2029 per the CEO; offtake and financing agreements are listed as later milestones.

Two EU grants, and the equity behind them

The EIC grant is not the company's only EU money. CORDIS shows it also coordinates RETURN, a Horizon Europe innovation action from June 2025 to May 2028 that aims to recover more than 99% of the metals in waste circuit boards with liquid salts and low-energy electrochemistry, and to sort and resell components through digital product passports. RETURN's EU contribution is €4,972,344.50 across seven signing partners in the UK, France, Italy and Germany; the company's net share is €2,470,528. A June 2026 report lists "€5 million" from EU Horizon among the company's grants, which matches the consortium total rather than the company's share.

The same report lists the other grants, as the company describes them: €1.5 million from Germany's SPRIND, £0.9 million from Innovate UK Investor Partnerships and £0.5 million from a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. The SPRIND award was reported by letsrecycle.com in January 2026: an initial €1.5 million under the Tech Metal Transformation Challenge, with up to €6 million over several stages, in a consortium with Seloxium, the University of Nottingham and Esy Labs. The company told Resource Recycling it had raised more than €30 million since launch; that figure mixes equity and grants and is not broken down.

On the equity side, the November 2024 Series A was led by BGF, per Startupintros, with Cisco Investments, Kadmos Capital and Nesta; letsrecycle.com names Vorwerk Ventures among the investors. Industrial News says the company raised £10.2 million for the Wilton plant; Startupintros gives $14.2 million for the round. The filed accounts show £10,280,091 of shares issued in 2024. Mitsubishi Corporation took an undisclosed stake in June 2025 and agreed to market the copper and precious metals the process recovers. Earlier, CPI Enterprises invested in March 2023 and worked with the company on scaling the solvent process to a pilot plant.

What the accounts show

The accounts for 2025, filed on 1 July 2026 with an unqualified audit report, describe a business that is "pre-revenue and is cash consumptive" and a product "a number of years away from being market ready". The loss was £1,923,732 in 2025 after £3,305,791 in 2024, and accumulated losses reached £9.39 million. Net assets were £8.46 million, including £6.02 million of cash.

The directors write that the company had raised £16.5 million of equity to date, that a cash forecast to December 2028 shows no further funding is needed in that period, and that more will be needed before the product covers its costs. After the year end, the company issued 1,028,334 A ordinary shares on 2 April 2026, for £473,034 according to the post-balance-sheet note and £453,000 according to the going concern note, and received a further £1.6 million for shares not yet issued. It also signed a five-year lease for the plant premises with a minimum commitment of £903,428.

Companies House lists the company as active, with seven directors, a confirmation statement dated 27 August 2026 and a further share allotment on 7 August 2026.

Why the EU funds a UK recycler

The EU's Critical Raw Materials Act sets benchmarks for 2030 that recycling should cover at least 25% of the EU's annual consumption of strategic raw materials and that no single third country should supply more than 65% of any of them, as summarised by the IEA. The UK government made its own announcement at the company's site: on 22 June 2026, Industry Minister Chris McDonald launched a £50 million critical minerals package at the Wilton Centre and toured DEScycle and Seloxium. That money is a government programme, not a grant to the company, although the company's website headlines it as launched "from DEScycle's facility".

The commercial plan is older than the plant. In 2022, GAP Group predicted 5,000 tonnes of e-waste a year at a planned plant in north-east England. Mitsubishi's June 2025 announcement, as reported by Evertiq, put a UK commercial plant of about 5,000 tonnes a year in 2028; the CEO told Mining Technology the first commercial plant would come by 2029, with regional plants on three continents by 2032.

The reporting is based on publicly available sources, listed below.