M.M. Feng
Polykala Technologies LLC,
United States
Keywords: rare earth metals, hydrogen, plasma, recycling
Summary:
Rare earth metals have been widely used in various high-tech areas, including motors, catalysts, and electronic devices, etc. Rare earth metals recycling is an alternative approach to strengthen the critical minerals supply chain of the U.S. Typical rare earth elements can be recycled are neodymium, dysprosium, samarium, cerium, lanthanum, and yttrium. The applications of hydrogen processing include 1) waste NdFeB magnet powder recovery and 2) reducing rare earth oxides (REOs) into their pure metallic forms. Our ongoing research aims to improve efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and environmental footprint of rare earth metal production using hydrogen processing and hydrogen plasma. Advances in hydrogen plasma design and process parameters optimization will improve the scalability and cost-effectiveness of this technology. This work was sponsored by the DOE SBIR Phase 2 project.