The 10th Rare Earth Roundtable online event – jointly organised by EIT RawMaterials’ Strategic Impact Group Network (SIGN) on Rare Earths and the MAGELLAN project – brought together specialists from producer-responsibility systems, industrial recycling, academia and technology development. The session examined a decisive but often overlooked part of Europe’s secondary rare earth permanent magnet value chain: the journey from an end-of-life product to usable recovered magnet material.
Recycling technologies can only work at scale if magnet-bearing products are collected, identified and dismantled before valuable material is dispersed through conventional shredding. Yet waste streams are fragmented, designs vary widely, magnet chemistry is rarely visible and extraction is often marginal.
Moderated by Nabeel Mancheri, Senior Advisor at EIT RawMaterials, the discussion followed this upstream chain from collection and traceability to industrial dismantling, chemistry-based sorting, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). Speakers emphasised that Europe needs both technical innovation and a market framework capable of keeping consistent feedstock in circulation.
Building traceable flows from end-of-life products
Laura Melandri (Strategic Development and Innovation Specialist, ERION Compliance Organisation) opened with a system-level view of collection under Extended Producer Responsibility. She mapped magnets across waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and other streams, including appliances, electric vehicles, wind turbines, light mobility, hard disk drives, power tools and medical equipment.
ERION’s analysis estimated that collected European WEEE contained around 400 tonnes of neodymium in 2021 – equivalent to approximately 1,600 tonnes of magnets – while the collection rate for neodymium-containing products remained around 30%. Once a product becomes waste, classifications generally do not reveal whether it contains a magnet, where it is located, or its quantity and chemistry.
Laura then compared long-loop hydrometallurgical recycling with short-loop routes such as hydrogen decrepitation. Although the two approaches retain value in different ways, both depend on effective pre-treatment: accessing the relevant component, demagnetising it where necessary, and extracting a sufficiently clean magnet stream.
The presentation highlighted the NEW-RE pilot for automated hard-disk-drive dismantling, INSPIREE’s planned industrial-scale disassembly and recycling of spent neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets, and PERMANET work on sensing, induction heating and semi-automated rotor dismantling. Laura also introduced the CritiX digital marketplace for aggregating fragmented volumes. Her central message was that infrastructure, traceability and market coordination must advance together.
Learning from real dismantling operations
Simon Coen (Field Innovation Engineer, Groupe Comet) presented MAGELLAN activities mapping the “urban mine” and testing dismantling routes for electric vehicle traction motors, e-bike motors and e-scooter wheels.
End-of-life electric vehicles currently provide limited volumes and their rotors vary substantially. Extraction relies on manual dismantling and thermo-mechanical steps, while feedstock remains too small for a fixed automated line. Light-mobility products reach end-of-life faster and are available in greater numbers. Comet reported recovering five tonnes of magnets from this stream in 2025, compared with only a few kilograms from electric vehicle motors.
However, higher volume does not automatically create a viable business case. Copper and aluminium often generate more revenue than the embedded magnets, and low-cost imported virgin material places further pressure on recycling margins. The decision to open a wheel or rotor, rather than send it to conventional shredding, can therefore depend on the value attributed to the magnet and the ability to recover all other materials efficiently.
Simon argued that automation is likely to be flexible and human-assisted. Manual work remains valuable for learning how products are assembled and adapting to changing designs, while targeted tools can automate repeatable operations. Dismantling is therefore a combination of product knowledge, logistics, thermal treatment and adaptable processes.
Sorting magnets by chemistry and value
David Bastin (University of Liège) focused on what happens once magnets have been removed from their components. MAGELLAN’s dismantling work has revealed wide variation in rotor geometry, magnet fixation, coatings and chemical composition – even within the same product category or between different batches of hard disk drives.
Heavy rare earth elements such as dysprosium and terbium can strongly influence both a magnet’s value and its production footprint. Treating recovered magnets as a uniform material risks diluting high-value feedstock and selecting a route that does not preserve its full potential.
David outlined a more selective approach in which magnets are characterised and sorted by coating, chemistry and heavy-rare-earth content before being directed to the most appropriate direct, pyrometallurgical or hydrometallurgical process. He presented University of Liège work on dynamic laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), which can support rapid, chemistry-based sorting at component or magnet level.
Many magnets are small and dispersed across products from which recovery may never be economical. Even an illustrative chain of 50% collection, 95% dismantling, 90% refining and 95% remanufacturing retains only around 40% of the original material after one loop. Recycling can improve resource efficiency, but must be complemented by European primary production and strategic international partnerships.
Robotics and AI before the shredder
Jakub Szalatkiewicz (Founder, Phoenix Surowce) presented selective dismantling and AI-assisted sorting as alternatives to the loss of value caused by mixed shredding. He argued that rare earth recycling cannot be viable when magnets are considered in isolation: a successful process must also recover aluminium, steel, copper, printed circuit boards and other valuable fractions from the same product.
Hard disk drives provide a useful demonstration case. They contain a relatively predictable magnet assembly, but hundreds of designs and inconsistent fasteners complicate automation. Phoenix Surowce’s RoboCycler combines product identification, robotic dismantling and separate recovery of clean streams. After thermal demagnetisation, AI vision distinguishes curved magnet pieces from similarly shaped steel brackets.
Jakub presented a broader toolbox for magnet-bearing waste: mapping target products, combining AI-assisted and manual sorting, using digital product data, and applying selective automation where feedstock is sufficiently consistent.
The presentation concluded that there is no universal robotic solution for heterogeneous end-of-life equipment. Tailored systems require investment, while waste classifications and shipment rules can make it difficult to aggregate material across borders. This creates a contradiction for Europe: recyclers struggle to secure feedstock even as magnet-bearing products and recovered materials continue to leave the region.
Q&A: scale, reuse and keeping material in Europe
The audience discussion explored industrial deployment. Flexible automation is more practical for consistent streams such as light mobility and hard disk drives, while diverse electric vehicle rotors will continue to require adaptable, partly manual processes. Better product labelling and information under the Critical Raw Materials Act could reduce uncertainty about magnet location and composition.
The panel also distinguished between reuse at component and magnet level. Extracted magnets are often damaged, application-specific or difficult to certify, making direct reuse challenging. Reuse of a complete component can be more realistic, while large wind-turbine magnets may offer possibilities for reshaping.
Finally, the discussion returned to scale and supply security. Even ambitious growth in recycling would meet only part of Europe’s projected NdFeB magnet demand. At the same time, large price differences between markets can draw recovered feedstock out of Europe. Collection incentives, workable shipment rules, investment in pre-processing and competitive purchasing conditions will therefore be essential if European recycling capacity is to have enough material to operate.
Cross-cutting takeaways from the roundtable
- Value must be protected before shredding. Identification, targeted collection and selective dismantling determine whether rare earth magnets remain recoverable or become dispersed in mixed fractions.
- Technology must match the waste stream. Manual work, thermal treatment, sensors, robotics, AI vision and chemistry-based sorting each have a role, but no single process can manage every product design and material composition.
- The business case is multi-material. Magnet recovery becomes more viable when it is integrated with efficient recovery of copper, aluminium, steel, circuit boards and other valuable materials.
- Information and market infrastructure matter. Better labelling, traceability, digital product data, aggregation platforms and clear cross-border rules are as important as advances in machinery.
- Recycling is essential, but not sufficient on its own. A resilient European magnet value chain will also require design for recovery, industrial scale-up, primary production and strategic international supply partnerships.
The MAGELLAN Project thanks all speakers and participants for their contributions.
