Project Blue was privileged to attend the opening of the Tyseley Rare Earth Magnet Recycling facility yesterday. The facility represents a step forward in developing and strengthening circular supply chains in the rare earth industry, reducing resource dependency on single countries and lowering carbon emissions within the magnet industry.

The new facility in Tyseley has the ability to produce between 100-300tpy NdFeB dependent upon shift patterns, providing NdFeB products to consumers across a wide range of end-use applications.

Rare earth magnets processed at the facility can be recycled using either a short loop process, recovering magnet powders directly for reuse, or medium/long loop recycling using both external and on-site purification facilities.

Primary materials are also able to be processed by the plant, to ensure magnet alloys and products produced at the site have the required composition and performance.

The facility is limited in the NdFeB magnet grades able to be manufactured, though research into increasing the range of magnet grades and incorporating processes such as grain boundary diffusion to reduce HREE requirements is being conducted.

A representative from Siemens highlighted the importance of developing magnet recycling capabilities for their energy transition products, reporting that NdFeB magnets form between 30-50% of carbon emissions for their range of electric motor products. Using recycled magnet materials from HyProMag has the potential to reduce carbon emissions of magnets used in their motors by 70-90%.

Many thanks to Mkango Resources, HyProMag Ltd. and to the University of Birmingham for the invitation to attend the opening and Project Blue look forward to seeing similar facilities commissioned in Europe and the USA in the coming years.