Magnet Recycling: Recovering Rare Earths from Permanent Magnets

Recycling rare earth permanent magnets is widely recognized as an essential component of any credible strategy to reduce dependence on Chinese rare earth supply. Yet despite decades of research and numerous pilot projects, the global recycling rate for rare earths remains below 1 percent. This striking gap between strategic importance and actual recovery reflects a combination of technical challenges, economic barriers, and logistical hurdles that the industry is only now beginning to overcome at meaningful scale.

Why Magnet Recycling Matters

The strategic rationale for magnet recycling is straightforward. With China controlling over 90 percent of rare earth magnet production, any disruption to that supply, whether through export restrictions, political tensions, or natural disaster, could cripple industries from automotive to aerospace. Recycled rare earths from end-of-life products represent a domestic or allied-nation supply source that does not depend on mining new ore or navigating Chinese processing infrastructure. Moreover, recycling magnets requires significantly less energy and produces far less radioactive waste than primary rare earth mining and refining.

The feedstock for magnet recycling is substantial and growing. Hundreds of millions of hard disk drives containing small NdFeB magnets are discarded annually. Millions of electric vehicle motors will reach end of life in the 2030s and 2040s. Wind turbines decommissioned after their 20 to 25 year operational life contain hundreds of kilograms of magnets each. Industrial motors, MRI machines, speakers, and consumer electronics all contribute additional magnet waste streams.

Hydrometallurgical Recycling

The most established recycling approach involves dissolving magnets in acid solutions and selectively precipitating or extracting rare earth elements using solvent extraction techniques. This hydrometallurgical route is essentially the same chemistry used in primary rare earth refining, and it produces separated rare earth oxides that can be fed back into the conventional magnet manufacturing process. The advantage is that the output is a well-understood product that existing magnet manufacturers can use directly. The disadvantages include high chemical consumption, generation of acidic wastewater, and the loss of the original magnet's microstructure, meaning the recovered elements must go through the full manufacturing process again from scratch.

Hydrogen Decrepitation (HPMS Process)

The hydrogen processing of magnet scrap (HPMS) technique, developed at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, offers an alternative that preserves more of the magnet's value. When NdFeB magnets are exposed to hydrogen gas at moderate pressures, the hydrogen is absorbed into the rare earth-rich grain boundary phase, causing the material to expand and fracture into a friable powder. This powder can then be reprocessed into new magnets with significantly less energy and chemical input than full hydrometallurgical recycling.

HPMS is particularly attractive because it can process magnets without first removing them from devices, a notoriously labor-intensive step that has historically made magnet recycling uneconomic. Entire hard disk drives or motor assemblies can be loaded into a hydrogen reactor, and the magnets will selectively decrepitate while other components (steel, copper, aluminum) remain largely intact and can be separated mechanically. Companies including HyProMag and Urban Mining Company are commercializing this approach.

Direct Magnet-to-Magnet Recycling

The most efficient theoretical approach to magnet recycling bypasses chemical separation entirely, instead reprocessing recovered magnet powder directly into new magnets. This "short-loop" recycling preserves the alloy composition, including expensive heavy rare earth dopants like dysprosium, and avoids the energy-intensive steps of oxide reduction and re-alloying. Research groups in the United States, Europe, and Japan have demonstrated promising results with direct recycling of sintered NdFeB magnet scrap.

The challenge is that real-world magnet scrap is heterogeneous. Magnets from different manufacturers, different applications, and different eras contain varying compositions. Mixing incompatible magnet grades produces inferior recycled magnets with unpredictable properties. Sorting and characterizing magnet scrap before direct recycling therefore becomes a critical step, and developing rapid, non-destructive techniques for magnet identification is an active area of research.

Collection and Logistics Barriers

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to magnet recycling is not chemistry but logistics. Magnets are embedded deep within complex products, and the cost of disassembling those products to access the magnets often exceeds the value of the recovered materials. A hard disk drive contains only 10 to 20 grams of NdFeB magnet material. An EV motor may contain one to three kilograms, but it requires specialized equipment to disassemble safely. Wind turbine generators contain large, easily accessible magnets, but the turbines are located in remote onshore and offshore locations.

Establishing efficient collection networks for magnet-bearing products is a prerequisite for any recycling operation to achieve economic viability. Extended producer responsibility legislation, such as the EU's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive, creates frameworks for collecting end-of-life electronics, but magnets are rarely specifically targeted for recovery within these systems. As EV batteries begin entering the waste stream in large numbers, the co-recovery of both battery minerals and motor magnets from a single vehicle represents an opportunity to improve recycling economics through shared collection and disassembly infrastructure.

Economic Viability and Policy Support

The economics of magnet recycling are highly sensitive to rare earth prices. When prices are high, as during the 2011 rare earth crisis or the 2022 price spike, recycling becomes financially attractive and investment flows into the sector. When prices drop, recycling operations struggle to compete with cheap primary material from China. This price volatility has contributed to the failure of several early recycling ventures and continues to deter private investment.

Government intervention is increasingly viewed as necessary to de-risk magnet recycling investment. The US Department of Energy has funded rare earth recycling research through its Critical Materials Institute. The European Union's Critical Raw Materials Act includes targets for recycling critical minerals. Japan, which experienced acute rare earth supply disruption during the 2010 Chinese export restrictions, has been the most aggressive in supporting magnet recycling infrastructure through its JOGMEC agency and partnerships with companies like Shin-Etsu Chemical. The long-term trajectory is clear: as magnet demand grows and supply concentration remains extreme, recycling must evolve from a niche activity into a mainstream industrial process.