The metal nobody sees
A quiet metalloid, present in almost every electrical object we use, mined on the other side of the world, that Europe uses and then burns.
Where antimony hides
Demand comes from sectors that cannot do without it: safety, digital technology, energy and defence.
Casings, screens and components, made flame retardant with antimony trioxide.
Antimony hardens the lead plates and extends their life.
Sheathing and insulation that must resist fire.
Refines solar glass and limits its yellowing.
Industrial covers, tents and flame-retarded clothing, including firefighters' kit.
Alloys and ammunition, the reason the metal is classed as strategic.
Fining agent and infrared optics.
Dopant for components, a growing use.
Thirty-four critical raw materials
Antimony is one of them
The European Union has identified thirty-four raw materials that are essential to its economy and exposed to a high risk of supply disruption, antimony among them.
Its production is concentrated in a handful of countries, and its price rose sixfold between 2021 and 2025.
Listed as critical
Antimony is on the European list of critical raw materials, which is reviewed every three years.
Circularity required
Every Member State must adopt a national programme of measures to improve the circularity of these materials.
A named waste stream
Waste electrical and electronic equipment, and the fraction left after dismantling, are named as priorities.
This framework is the Critical Raw Materials Act, the European regulation on critical raw materials adopted in 2024. No industry recovers the antimony from that residual fraction today. It is the fraction DeeeMines treats.
All of Europe’s antimony comes from abroad
Of the twenty-six critical raw materials needed for the energy transition, ten are entirely imported. Antimony is one of them.
Share of imports from non-EU countries in the European Union’s supply.
Strontium is the exception: 99.7 % of European supply comes from Spain.
European Court of Auditors, special report 04/2026, based on European Commission data covering 2016-2020.
The European paradox
Three facts that, put together, describe exactly the problem DeeeMines solves.
Antimony is used first to make plastics flame retardant
Half of world consumption goes into plastics, together with brominated flame retardants.
Those plastics end up incinerated
European rules on persistent organic pollutants and on chemical substances require them to be kept out of recycling. With no other option, the industry pays to destroy them.
The critical metal disappears with them
The European Union imports all of its antimony, and every year burns the antimony it already has on its own soil.
This is where DeeeMines comes in
We take these plastics (electronic waste, technical covers, cables) before they reach the incinerator.
With our patented process we extract the antimony and the brominated compounds, and put them back on the European market.
The mild temperature and pressure conditions also allow the plastic itself to be recycled once purified.