Imagine if we could take old hard drives and electric car motors and easily pull out the powerful magnets inside. Right now, these valuable materials are mostly thrown away or lost during shredding. This project builds a specialized factory line to rescue these magnets and turn them back into raw materials for new green technology.
Europe relies 100% on imports for rare earth elements needed for green tech, while existing recycling processes lose these materials during waste processing.
An intelligent sorting system and an automated dismantling pilot to extract magnets from electronic waste.
If you are an EV manufacturer dealing with a 100% dependency on imported rare earth elements for motors — this project developed a closed-loop recycling chain that recovers Neodymium and Dysprosium. This allows you to secure a local supply of materials for new permanent magnets.
If you are a waste recycler dealing with the loss of valuable magnets during standard shredding — this project developed an intelligent sorting and automated dismantling pilot. This enables you to extract 70 t of permanent magnets per year from end-of-life products.
If you are an electronics producer dealing with high raw material costs for magnets — this project developed a process to convert extracted magnets into high purity oxides and alloys. This provides a sustainable source of materials with performance similar to virgin REEs.
The project aims to recover rare earth elements at a competitive cost, targeting a price at least 25% cheaper than primary production in China.
The project is constructing pilots capable of producing 70 t of permanent magnets per year from various end-of-life products.
Based on available project data, the consortium includes experts in exploitation and dissemination to manage the transition from pilot to market, though specific licensing terms are not listed.
The process focuses on Neodymium (Nd) and Dysprosium (Dy) found in permanent magnets from electric motors and hard disk drives.
The project period runs from 2022-05-01 to 2026-04-30, with pilot validation currently underway.
The consortium is heavily industry-driven with a 73% industry ratio (11 out of 15 partners), including 6 SMEs. This high concentration of commercial partners, spanning 8 countries and covering the entire value chain from waste collection to magnet manufacturing, suggests a strong focus on commercial viability and rapid market adoption rather than pure academic research.
Contact SINTEF AS in Norway for technical specifications on the dismantling pilots.
Contact us to connect with the REEPRODUCE consortium for pilot partnership opportunities.
