On 13 February 2025, EIT RawMaterials hosted a webinar titled “Techno-Economic Challenges of Recycling Permanent Magnets.” Organised under the umbrella of the MAGELLAN project, the session drew an expert panel to discuss Europe’s approach to creating a resilient, sustainable supply chain for rare earth permanent magnets.
Speakers represented organisations with different and complementary approaches on permanent magnet recycling, offering valuable perspectives on the challenges and potential solutions. The webinar illustrated how an integrated, European-centred supply chain could help strengthen permanent magnet recycling capabilities, with the overarching aim of lowering reliance on imports and reducing the environmental footprint. Moderated by Dr Nabeel Mancheri of EIT RawMaterials, this online event underscored the urgent need to collaborate across industry, research, and policy domains.
Kicking off the session, Dr Mancheri highlighted a forthcoming initiative called “SIGN”. Dr Mancheri explained that EIT RawMaterials is launching four Strategic Impact Group Networks on topics such Rare Earth Elements, Batteries, Green Metals and Mining/ Processing to tackle four critical pillars which are skills shortages, innovation gaps, investment shortfalls and regulatory challenges, with the aim to accelerate European industrial competitiveness in critical sectors.
Dr Mancheri also extended an invitation to attend the official launch event for the first two groups – rare earths and magnets, and battery materials – taking place in Frankfurt on 9-10 April, where workshops will explore the strategic themes underpinning these Impact Groups.
He then set the stage by spotlighting the MAGELLAN project’s broader aims and importance for Europe’s critical raw materials landscape. By introducing MAGELLAN as a project “coordinated by Orano” and supported by partners across Europe, Dr Mancheri underscored the momentum behind developing a sustainable, Europe-based supply chain for permanent magnets – one that brings together leading experts, stakeholders, and policy drivers to collectively tackle the sector’s most pressing challenges.
Sorana Luca, Researcher, CEA-Liten
Dr Sorana Luca introduced the short-loop, or “magnet-to-alloy,” approach to recycling neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) magnets, highlighting how it can retain a significant portion of the material’s performance value. She stressed that “the low carbon, circular economy is a necessity for the energy transition,” and reminded participants that NdFeB magnets are “key components for the low carbon economy,” particularly in electric vehicles and wind turbines. Drawing on her work at CEA-Liten, Dr Luca explained that the short-loop route involves incorporating scrap magnets at specific manufacturing steps – such as melting, strip casting and powder metallurgy – to produce new high-performance magnets with a target of including at least 25% recycled content.
Dr Luca underscored that while short-loop recycling can significantly reduce both environmental impact and Europe’s dependence on imported magnets, it also demands rigorous control over feedstock composition and contamination. In particular, “heterogeneous batches highly contaminated in oxygen and carbon” can hinder the yield and prove difficult to recycle without metallurgical adjustments, and coatings must often be removed to preserve magnet quality. Another pressing issue involves collecting and securing enough end-of-life magnets to run pilot lines at meaningful scales: “The stock of used permanent magnets is building up,” she noted, but stable supply chains remain nascent. Dr Luca also stressed the economic necessity of collaboration with industrial partners – both to refine process parameters so that recycled magnets meet high-performance targets and to ensure cost-competitiveness, given that short-loop recycling equipment and operational costs must align with market realities.
Carlo Burkhardt, Scientific Director, Co-Founder, HyProMag
Professor Carlo Burkhardt focused on hydrogen-based short-loop recycling, sometimes referred to as Hydrogen Processing of Magnetic Scrap (HPMS), advanced through the REEsilience project and its predecessor project SUSMAGPRO. By introducing hydrogen into an assembly, “the material is not only forming a powder [ideal for downstream processes], it is also demagnetising,” he explained, allowing entire rotors or hard disk drives to be separated from their non-magnetic components. In describing the work dismantling a range of automotive and electronic parts, Professor Burkhardt emphasised that proper identification and quick disassembly are essential: “We have completely underdeveloped recycling schemes right now,” he warned, because conventional mixed shredding processes are poorly suited to separating brittle magnets.
Professor Burkhardt highlighted multiple operational barriers that, if unaddressed, threaten the economic viability of hydrogen-based short-loop recycling. First, he emphasised that “most of the magnets are deeply embedded…they’re glued into the components,” resulting in high labour costs. Without “design for recycling,” producers and recyclers must expend considerable effort simply to free the magnets from casings, adhesives, and coatings. He also noted that many recyclers “are not particularly fond of magnets” because these brittle materials can damage standard shredder equipment, causing downtime and lost productivity. Beyond process-level issues, Prof. Burkhardt pointed to a lack of consistent, high-volume feedstock needed to scale HPMS economically; varied magnet grades, contamination levels, and uncertain supply inflows all complicate batch planning and commercial forecasting. Lastly, the absence of clear labelling standards impedes the quick segregation of neodymium from ferrite or samarium cobalt magnets, leading to increased costs. Consequently, widespread deployment of hydrogen-based recycling hinges on improved product design for recyclability, standardised magnet labelling, and robust collection channels to keep material streams stable and contamination low.
Patrick Nee, Co-Founder, Cyclic Materials
Patrick Nee introduced the long-loop, hydrometallurgical method used by Cyclic Materials to recover rare earths from “a wide variety of post-consumer devices,” including hybrid cars and electronics. Instead of relying on scrap magnets that are already removed, his team can take whole components, extracting not only the rare earths but also base metals like copper and aluminium. “We believe that there are very few opportunities where magnets are already removed from devices,” he said, underscoring the need for an all-inclusive process. By reverting the magnet alloy to mixed rare earth oxides, Cyclic Materials then partners with downstream companies, such as Solvay, which refine those oxides to high-purity specifications for re-entry into the supply chain.
Mr Nee explained that, although Cyclic Materials’ long-loop approach can handle a vast spectrum of devices, it involves significant effort to ensure reliable, high-volume feedstock at economically viable costs. Noting that “many recyclers struggle to collect end-of-life magnets before they are commingled with steel,” he highlighted how much of the material either goes unsegregated in scrap yards or is reused in its entirety (e.g., salvaged motors). This competition from secondary exporters reduces the number of magnets available for recycling. Mr Nee underscored that “quality control remains crucial” because achieving downstream specifications requires collaboration with partners such as Solvay, who impose high purity standards which, in his words, “really held us to very high standards” but is essential for restoring trust and value in recycled rare earths. Finally, he identified China’s dominant role in setting rare earth reference prices as a market distortion, stressing the need for “a new ex-China reference” to accurately capture production costs and drive investment in European recycling infrastructure.
Lama Itani, Business Development Manager, Rare Earths, Solvay
Representing Solvay’s expertise in rare earth separation, Lama Itani explained that “we are at the middle of the value chain” where mixed rare earth oxide compounds must be refined into high-purity rare earths. She highlighted the company’s decades-long heritage, noting it “did not stop to evolve and to change itself to propose new products” in rare earth chemistry. For rare earth oxides, Solvay aims to accept a wide spectrum of feedstocks by “reinventing our process and our assets,” ensuring that virgin and end-of-life sources can be merged into an efficient European supply chain.
Ms Itani emphasised that while solvent extraction allows for the production of fresh, high-performance rare earth oxides from even heavily oxidised or contaminated scrap, the process is both resource and capital intensive. Extracting neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium from a wide mix of feedstocks can require many separation stages with each stage demanding power, reagents, and skilled oversight – cost factors that must be optimised at scale.
She further noted that “partnership across the whole value chain” is vital; if sorting or pre-treatment is poorly executed upstream, Solvay must undertake lengthier purification steps, driving up operational expenditures. Another significant concern is forecasted feedstock availability: Ms Itani noted that the number of end-of-life electric vehicles and the composition of their magnets can vary, making it challenging to plan capacity and ensure a steady supply for large-scale chemical separation.
She also acknowledged that “regulatory is a challenge today but also could be an enabler tomorrow,” underscoring how policy, incentives, and clarity in waste management rules would help reduce uncertainties. If aligned with industry needs, policies and incentives could stimulate both the collection of magnetic scrap and large-scale, commercially viable separation facilities in Europe.
In bringing together experts on both short-loop and long-loop routes, the online event underscored that there is no single, universal solution to recycling permanent magnets. Across their presentations, speakers not only highlighted key challenges – ranging from feedstock volatility and design-for-recycling deficiencies to complex regulatory hurdles – but also presented innovative solutions at each step of the value chain. They demonstrated how short-loop and long-loop methods each have a place in Europe’s quest for a secure, cost-effective supply of rare earths, whether by lowering environmental footprints or tackling highly variable scrap streams while still delivering top-tier magnet performance.
To explore these insights in depth and see how industry leaders are tackling the challenges, view the full online event recording on MAGELLAN’s YouTube channel.
As the MAGELLAN project continues, you are invited to follow its progress and the Rare Earth Roundtable series, joining the network of industry and research champions striving to shape Europe’s permanent magnet recycling future.
Follow the MAGELLAN project on soical media for further updates, and don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or would like to engage further.
