Periodic Reporting for period 1 - REEPRODUCE (Dismantling and recycling Rare Earth Elements from End-of-life products for the European Green Transition)
Reporting period: 2022-05-01 to 2023-10-31
Europe's ambitious energy and climate goals are heavily dependent on critical raw materials such as Rare Earth Elements (REEs). The largest end-user of REEs is the permanent magnet industry for electric mobility and renewable energy technologies. The growth in those strategic sectors till 2050 is expected to increase the demand of REEs used in the magnets, e.g. Nd, Dy. However, Europe depends almost 100% on REEs imports and there are no market-ready substitutes. Despite the fact that significant amounts of EoL products containing REE-based magnets are collected in Europe, the current recycling processes do not allow their recovery, and are lost downstream.
To face this challenge, the REEPRODUCE project aims at setting up, for the first time, a resilient and complete European REEs-recycling value chain, at industrial scale for the recovery of REEs at competitive cost compared to REEs primary production with environmentally friendly and socially sustainable technologies. REEPRODUCE will capitalize on the knowledge generated in previous projects and aim to solve all remaining technical challenges along the value chain to construct pilots able to recycle 70 t of PMs per year from variety of EoL products bearing Nd-magnets. Additionally it will demonstrate the conversion of PMs extracted from many different EoL products into high purity rare earth oxide mixtures and rare earth alloys that will be used in the manufacture of new magnets.
To face this challenge, the REEPRODUCE project aims at setting up, for the first time, a resilient and complete European REEs-recycling value chain, at industrial scale for the recovery of REEs at competitive cost compared to REEs primary production with environmentally friendly and socially sustainable technologies. REEPRODUCE will capitalize on the knowledge generated in previous projects and aim to solve all remaining technical challenges along the value chain to construct pilots able to recycle 70 t of PMs per year from variety of EoL products bearing Nd-magnets. Additionally it will demonstrate the conversion of PMs extracted from many different EoL products into high purity rare earth oxide mixtures and rare earth alloys that will be used in the manufacture of new magnets.
REEPRODUCE project aims at setting up a resilient and complete European rare earth elements (REE) recycling value chain, at industrial scale for the recovery of REEs at competitive cost compared to primary production, with environmentally friendly, and socially sustainable technologies. The project will demonstrate a complete closed-loop REE-based magnets' recycling process, from EoL products (WEEE) to the manufacture of magnets with the recycled material. The technologies developed along the whole REEPRODUCE solution will be demonstrated at Pilot scale (TRL7) in 7 Pilots that will be engineered, constructed, and validated in several locations at the partners sites, including end-of-life (EoL) products' recyclers, REEs-intensive material producers, metal recyclers/producers, and magnet manufacturers.
At present, the project has developed 2 Pilot units: the intelligent sorting system and the automatized dismantling pilot. Those are currently being tested at the recyclers' facilities. Besides, the project continues the optimization of processes, and engineering work for: i) extraction of Nd-magnets from the components; ii) recovery of REEs and RE oxides (REO); iii) conversion of the REO in RE alloys (REA).
During the first period of the project, the technologies covering the different steps described above have been optimized for some targeted EoL products containing Nd-based magnets, i.e. rotors from EV motors and HVAC compressors, wheels from electric transporters (scooters, skateboards, hoverboards), and HDDs from computers and servers.
The intelligent sorting technology has been developed and optimized by partner S2S in the frame of Task 2.2. The sorting technology combines sensor and supervised machine learning using camera systems in combination with artificial intelligence learning software. The system will be upgraded during the whole lifetime of the project, using the database that is being developed in Task 2.1 with the aim of making the learning software more robust. More detailed information and results are given in D2.1.
The automated robotic system for dismantling components containing Nd magnets from EoL products has been developed by partner CEIT. The robot performs drilling and housing removal to obtain the targeted components from relevant EoL products. For the robot to understand and settle the trajectory planning of the actions to perform (clamping, grasping, drilling, sucking, etc), machine learning is used. The technology is almost optimized, and the results will be gathered in D2.2 to be submitted in M20.
The technologies for developing systems for the semi-automatic extraction of magnet blocks (sintered magnets) from components containing Nd-based magnets have been optimized by partner FAU. 3 different methodologies have been developed focused on the extraction of magnets from 1) rotors from EV motors and HVAC compressors; 2) electric transporters' wheels; 3) HDDs components. The results are gathered in D3.1.
The operating conditions to extract REEs in the form of REO mixtures from spent magnets have been optimized by partner TEC. The work has been focused, mainly, on spent magnets from electric transporters' wheels, HDDs and e-motors. The advanced hydrometallurgical (AHM) technology will be adapted to the different magnets' chemistries. The results are shown in D4.1.
The direct conversion of the REO mixture into REA suitable for magnet production has been optimized by partner SINTEF. The parameters to be used in the high temperature electrolysis (HTE) process have been optimized to be able to tackle various REE compositions in the REO feed (output from the AHM process) without compromising the quality of the REA produced. More information is given in D4.2.
Besides, the main function, functional unit and reference flow of the product assessed in the overall sustainability assessment (LCA, LCCA, s-LCA) has been defined. Those are key concepts and drive the results and conclusions of the assessment. The LCA/LCCA collection has been achieved for the conventional scenario and is currently ongoing for the REPRODUCE value chain. The preliminary results for the LCA give encouraging results.
At present, the project has developed 2 Pilot units: the intelligent sorting system and the automatized dismantling pilot. Those are currently being tested at the recyclers' facilities. Besides, the project continues the optimization of processes, and engineering work for: i) extraction of Nd-magnets from the components; ii) recovery of REEs and RE oxides (REO); iii) conversion of the REO in RE alloys (REA).
During the first period of the project, the technologies covering the different steps described above have been optimized for some targeted EoL products containing Nd-based magnets, i.e. rotors from EV motors and HVAC compressors, wheels from electric transporters (scooters, skateboards, hoverboards), and HDDs from computers and servers.
The intelligent sorting technology has been developed and optimized by partner S2S in the frame of Task 2.2. The sorting technology combines sensor and supervised machine learning using camera systems in combination with artificial intelligence learning software. The system will be upgraded during the whole lifetime of the project, using the database that is being developed in Task 2.1 with the aim of making the learning software more robust. More detailed information and results are given in D2.1.
The automated robotic system for dismantling components containing Nd magnets from EoL products has been developed by partner CEIT. The robot performs drilling and housing removal to obtain the targeted components from relevant EoL products. For the robot to understand and settle the trajectory planning of the actions to perform (clamping, grasping, drilling, sucking, etc), machine learning is used. The technology is almost optimized, and the results will be gathered in D2.2 to be submitted in M20.
The technologies for developing systems for the semi-automatic extraction of magnet blocks (sintered magnets) from components containing Nd-based magnets have been optimized by partner FAU. 3 different methodologies have been developed focused on the extraction of magnets from 1) rotors from EV motors and HVAC compressors; 2) electric transporters' wheels; 3) HDDs components. The results are gathered in D3.1.
The operating conditions to extract REEs in the form of REO mixtures from spent magnets have been optimized by partner TEC. The work has been focused, mainly, on spent magnets from electric transporters' wheels, HDDs and e-motors. The advanced hydrometallurgical (AHM) technology will be adapted to the different magnets' chemistries. The results are shown in D4.1.
The direct conversion of the REO mixture into REA suitable for magnet production has been optimized by partner SINTEF. The parameters to be used in the high temperature electrolysis (HTE) process have been optimized to be able to tackle various REE compositions in the REO feed (output from the AHM process) without compromising the quality of the REA produced. More information is given in D4.2.
Besides, the main function, functional unit and reference flow of the product assessed in the overall sustainability assessment (LCA, LCCA, s-LCA) has been defined. Those are key concepts and drive the results and conclusions of the assessment. The LCA/LCCA collection has been achieved for the conventional scenario and is currently ongoing for the REPRODUCE value chain. The preliminary results for the LCA give encouraging results.
Europe continues to be extremely dependent on importing REEs from China (dependency rate is 98-99% of imported REEs). The situation will be very though for many industries in Europe in the coming decade as China will not be able to supply sufficient REEs due to the high forecasted demand worldwide. Hence, Europe needs to diversify its REE supply, and the REEPRODUCE project will set up the foundations for a new resilient business for REE production and supply from European secondary sources (EoL products) that can provide at least 20-30% of the REE need in Europe over the coming two decades.
The REEs production from EoL products seems to be the perfect market opportunity to capitalize and secure an important and strategic value chain for Europe’s green transition. Despite this opportunity, there is still no industrial recycling activity of REEs in Europe. The main bottleneck is related to the maturity of industrial processes capable of producing REEs from EoL products at competitive cost compared to the conventional Chinese production from primary resources. The technological bottleneck is twofold: i) There is a lack of mature technologies to recognize where the Nd-based PMs are placed in different types of EoL products, as well as missing technologies to sort and extract such PMs in a cost-efficient way, with minimized impurities. ii) Mature technologies are missing to purify and recover at high efficiency REEs from Nd-based PMs, esp. with varying content of REEs and impurities.
Therefore, the REEPRODUCE technological developments will unleash the full potential of the REEs-recycling business in Europe by validating the technologies at pilot scale, and showing stakeholders the positive environmental and social footprints, as well as the competitive cost of the REEPRODUCE value chain.
The REEs production from EoL products seems to be the perfect market opportunity to capitalize and secure an important and strategic value chain for Europe’s green transition. Despite this opportunity, there is still no industrial recycling activity of REEs in Europe. The main bottleneck is related to the maturity of industrial processes capable of producing REEs from EoL products at competitive cost compared to the conventional Chinese production from primary resources. The technological bottleneck is twofold: i) There is a lack of mature technologies to recognize where the Nd-based PMs are placed in different types of EoL products, as well as missing technologies to sort and extract such PMs in a cost-efficient way, with minimized impurities. ii) Mature technologies are missing to purify and recover at high efficiency REEs from Nd-based PMs, esp. with varying content of REEs and impurities.
Therefore, the REEPRODUCE technological developments will unleash the full potential of the REEs-recycling business in Europe by validating the technologies at pilot scale, and showing stakeholders the positive environmental and social footprints, as well as the competitive cost of the REEPRODUCE value chain.