
What is Queen?
QUEEN (Quartz Enrichment Enabling Near-Zero Silicon) is a EU-funded project addresses a significant challenge: EU’s heavy reliance on external sources for critical raw materials, especially metallurgical silicon (MG-Si).
This EU project is a leap forward in sustainability, focusing on eco-friendly processes for high-purity quartz production.
The overall objective is the development of a new environmentally friendly metallurgical grade silicon (MG-Si) process from quarry sands (smelting and mineral extraction processes) reducing CO2 total emissions, potentially transforming any EU quarry with quartz into an MG-Si reservoir, with technologies adaptable to other materials.
QUEEN is part of Horizon Europe, the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation. It tackles climate change, helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and boosts the EU’s competitiveness and growth.
The programme facilitates collaboration and strengthens the impact of research and innovation in developing, supporting, and implementing EU policies while tackling global challenges.
It supports creating and better dispersing of excellent knowledge and technologies.
It creates jobs, fully engages the EU’s talent pool, boosts economic growth, promotes industrial competitiveness, and optimizes investment impact within a strengthened European Research Area. In this sense, QUEEN is perfectly aligned with the scope and outcomes of HORIZON-CL4-TWIN TRANSITION-01-20.
Goals
1
The new mineralogical separation project based on flotation for quarries and extraction.
2
To develop a new more efficient Smelting process for metal silicon.
3
Development, optimization, and validation of the QUEEN solution.
4
Deep analysis of quartz occurrence in Europe landscape.
5
Cover 56% of MG-Si Eu demand by 2032 by recovering more than 300Mt MG-Si from sands.
News
02.06.2026
The QUEEN Project has recently been presented at two major industry events: the Annual Assembly of the Gremi d’Àrids de Catalunya and the Entrepreneurs Forum held in Larnaca, Cyprus (#CY2026EU), organised by Aggregates Europe and leading sector associations. The forum [...]
14.05.2026
The Horizon Europe project QUEEN — Quartz Enrichment Enabling Near-Zero Silicon Production was recently presented in the United Kingdom במסגרת the UK–UA STEM PRO Programme, an initiative supporting Ukrainian STEM researchers and educators. As part of the programme, selected participants [...]
05.05.2026
The QUEEN Project was presented at the Biocarbon in Metallurgy 2026, held from April 21 to 23 in Kraków, Poland, where partners Maria Wallin (NTNU) and Denys Gryshan (OFZ) shared the latest developments of the project. Following its introduction at [...]
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Contact
Gremi d’Àrids de Catalunya
info@queenprojecte.eu
gremiarids.com
Address: Rambla Catalunya 127, 3r.
08008 – Barcelona.
T. 93 415 64 83






