Researchers at the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Materials Recycling and Resource Strategies (IWKS) in Germany have developed a new recycling method for spent magnets that are used in electric motors. Until now, such magnets were produced under expensive and environmentally harmful conditions and were rarely recycled. The new process makes it possible to produce magnets from old ones without any major loss of performance.
Recycling with different source materials
During the study, relevant parameters of the respective motors were first determined and then compared with the machines’ performance after they had been fitted with recycled magnets. Spent magnets from several industrial partners were used for the recycling process, which led to significant differences in performance, shape, and quality. With this approach, the researchers want to remain as close to reality as possible and at the same time demonstrate that the recycling process can also work with different source materials.
No melting of starting materials required
The new recycling method involves shredding the old magnets and treating them in a hydrogen atmosphere. The resulting granulate is further shredded and can then be formed into new magnets. In contrast to the production of brand-new magnets, no time-consuming melting of the starting material is required, thereby reducing energy consumption. Theoretically, the method could be used to process thousands of magnets at the same time. The majority of the performance losses can be compensated for by adding new material or targeted processing of the microstructure. The researchers are currently working on optimizing the recycling process. Another goal is to enable application-specific recycling variants in the future.
https://www.wissenschaft.de/technik-digitales/magnetrecycling-fuer-die-elektromobilitaet
