Opened by Chris McDonald MP (pictured), Minister for Industry in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Department for Business and Trade, Birmingham’s rare earth magnet recycling facility uses a hydrogen-based process developed by researchers at the university.
Hydrogen Processing of Magnet Scrap technology is an extremely efficient method to extract rare earth magnets from end-of-life products without the need to fully disassemble them. It transforms waste into a sustainable UK source of rare earths that can be used to manufacture new metals, alloys and magnets while reducing both environmental impact, cost and supply chain risk.
The facility at Tyseley Energy Park in Birmingham scales the process to commercial production levels. The previous proof of concept facility handled batches of 50-100kg size while the new scaled up facility can recover more than 400kg of rare earth alloy per batch and into new sintered magnets at 100 tonne capacity per year on a single shift and more than 300 tonnes on multiple shifts. Magnets can be produced at a fraction of the environmental impact and cost compared to primary production methods.
The processing facility re-introduces sintered rare earth magnet production back into the UK for the first time in 25 years and this can be used for the primary production of magnets as well as from recycled feeds.
By recycling products such as hard drives, electric motors, wind turbines, robotic actuators, pumps, filters and electronics, this also delivers a CO2 saving of around 90% compared to producing magnets from minerals extracted from the ground.
Rare earth recycling sits within the university’s broader research strengths in battery recycling, robotic disassembly, chemical recovery and energy storage.
The recycling facility has been funded (£4.5m) by Innovate UK’s Driving the Electric Industrialisation Centres with supporting grants via the Innovate Climates Programme, EPSRC, the Advanced Propulsion Centre and EU Horizon grants.
Image: University of Birmingham – Chris McDonald MP cutting the ribbon at the opening of the rare earth magnet recycling facility.
