As the demand for rare-earth elements surges due to the global transition toward green technology, recycling these critical materials has become a vital area of development. Essential for manufacturing wind turbines, electric vehicle motors, and consumer electronics, rare earths are currently recycled at a rate of less than one percent globally. While technological difficulties and economic barriers have historically hindered recovery efforts, new recycling processes are being developed to extract these valuable metals from electronic waste, aiming to reduce environmental impacts and reliance on dominant global suppliers.
- Rare-earth elements are crucial components in modern green technologies, including wind turbines and electric vehicles.
- Currently, less than one percent of these critical minerals are recovered through recycling, with most discarded as electronic waste.
- Technical challenges, such as the minute quantities of rare earths used in individual devices, make extraction highly complex and costly.
- China currently dominates the global supply chain, controlling the vast majority of rare-earth mining and processing.
- Advancements in metallurgical and chemical recycling processes are targeting the recovery of neodymium magnets to help secure alternative supply chains.
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Not every dream can come true.
Industrial Hemp makes capacitors, batteries, bio-fuels, bio-plastics, hempcrete, cloth, papers, ect…, it remediates soil, it makes high in protein & omega foods & oils.
Yes, companies have been doing this for decades
There is no problem to find rare earths the refining capacity is the bottle neck for Europe.
The byproducts of industrial production of some rare metal elements require significant industrial production capacity, which cannot be achieved simply by possessing rare earth elements.
Yes, the problem is alway economic.
USA will mine more of these in Greenland and Australia. Soon, Space X will send autonomous drones to mine trillions of dollars worth of “rare” “earths” each year from the asteroid belt.
EU can continue to try to recover .0000001% from recycling 😂
Of course elements can be recycled. They are elements. Every element has unique properties. It’s just chemistry.
Now every time Europe say thay can achieve something, I bring Northvolt to my mind….The weak guy still think they are powerful as before. Pathetic😂😂😂
the environment friendliness of recycling rare earths is not in what power source you use but what the by product wastes are.
太贵了，数量太少，不具备商业价值。最惨的是，等你们费劲九牛二虎之力重建了稀土工业，中国就会放松稀土管制，降低价格，会轻松对这些重建的产业造成重创。
Does it cost less than a trade war with China? Or do you have to send warship to China for a show?
You banned China for this and that, and now China has banned the export of rare earths, so you're finding ways to get around it through recycling. That's pathetic, you poor bugger!
I don’t understand his comment about magnets not being “thought” or discussed in science… in my experience that is not true.