K. Stoll
Critical Materials Recycling (CMR),
United States
Keywords: rare earth recycling, e-waste, acid-free, rare earth oxide
Summary:
The global rare earth market has proven to be volatile and unpredictable, causing domestic sources of rare earth oxides to continue to increase is criticality. Recycling plays, and will continue to play, and key role in meeting the supply and demand needs for rare earth oxides and rare earth permanent magnets. Recycling is a necessary component to the supply chain, particularly when evaluating the sources for heavy rare earth elements, namely dysprosium and terbium, that are so important to the electrification efforts and EV market. Due to the limited dysprosium and terbium concentrations in domestic mining, recycling permanent magnets provides a primary source of these elements. Critical Materials Recycling (CMR), a sister company to TdVib LLC (original industrial developers), has commercialized the acid-free dissolution recycling (ADR) technology, originally invented and developed at the Critical Materials Institute (CMI), Ames National Laboratory. Currently, CMR is in ongoing commercial production with feedstocks including shredded hard disc drives, magnet swarf, wind turbines, and other scrap magnet sources. Production is performed at CMR's pilot plant in Boone, IA while their demonstration plant is being built. The pilot plant has a capacity of over 20 metric tons of rare earth oxide production, and the demonstration plant will have a capacity of over 100 metric tons of rare earth oxide production. CMR is dedicated to securing the domestic supply chain through a circular economy approach by recycling end-of-life magnet and production waste feedstocks for reinsertion into the domestic supply chain. The proposed talk would include an overview of the technology and the rare earth market, as well as a general timeline and flow of the scaling efforts- providing an example roadmap for technology maturation. This includes key partnerships, technological advancements, feedstock flexibility and processing, and funding opportunities that can aid any technology development effort.