Recycling Decisions in 2020, 2030, and 2040—When Can Substantial NdFeB Extraction be Expected in the EU?

Abstract

In recent years, China’s dominant role in the rare earth market and the associated impacts have strengthened the interest in the recovery of rare earth elements (REE) from secondary resources. Therefore, numerous research activities have been initiated aiming at the recovery of REEs from different types of waste streams, which includes, inter alia, neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets. Although several research projects have successfully been completed, most experts do not expect an industrial implementation in Europe within the next years. This article analyses the reasons for this situation, addressing the availability of sufficient amounts of NdFeB wastes, the technology readiness level of the developed processes in Europe, as well as the economic aspects. Based on these analyses, an estimation of a realistic timeframe for the industrial implementation of NdFeB recycling in Europe is deduced and critically discussed.

Coercivity Increase of the Recycled HDDR Nd-Fe-B Powders Doped with DyF3 and Processed via Spark Plasma Sintering & the Effect of Thermal Treatments

“…The concept of recycling the permanent magnets includes the techniques like: hydrometallurgical, pyro-metallurgical, direct reusage and indirect recycling approaches [37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46]. The advantage of direct recycling and re-usage methods, based on hydrogen-based technologies and sintering, which we have proposed in our previous study [19] and the present work, is that they have a smaller environmental footprint, as compared to conventional hydro- and pyro-metallurgical methods, which are energy intensive and require plentiful of highly corrosive chemical mediums.…”

Blueprint and Implementation of Rural Stand-Alone Power Grids with Second-Life Lithium Ion Vehicle Traction Battery Systems for Resilient Energy Supply of Tropical or Remote Regions

“…By using given sales data as well as forecasts for future sales, it is customary to assign an average lifespan and retrieve returns analytically or by simulation. Normal and Weibull distributions are only two of the possible density functions, each requiring location parameter assumptions suitable for the returned goods [12]. For the special case of lithium ion battery recycling, the batteries can return before or exactly when the vehicle’s lifetime is reached, de facto creating a unique lifetime distribution [13].…”

Sustainable Utilization of Metals-Processing, Recovery and Recycling

“…Consumer and production wastes show excellent recovery opportunities for this group of metals. That is why eleven papers deal with the recovery of base metals [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] and one of precious metals [23].…”