Value Recovery of Rare Earth and Other Critical Elements from Waste Materials and Electronic Devices

This project will contribute to establishing a resilient supply chain for rare-earth elements (REEs) and other critical materials in the U.S., significantly reducing the reliance that now creates high vulnerability to foreign control of rare-earth metals—the ‘vitamins of a modern society.’ REEs enable advanced manufacturing, clean transportation, efficient computing, power generation, energy storage, industrial automation, national defense, and high-tech consumer electronics. Successful deployment of environmentally friendly/energy-efficient technologies is limited by REE availability—negatively impacting national energy independence (a critical DOE concern), security, and the economy. This STTR project aims at commercializing a robust, environmentally-benign acid-free dissolution recycling (ADR) process that enables recovery of high-purity REEs from waste materials. It is the only technology known to the applicants that selectively/efficiently recovers REEs from wastes without limiting further recycling of the other waste components. During Phase I work, the ADR technology was demonstrated to be suitable for application in simple and complex types of e-waste containing REEs. Feedstocks included hard disc drives, drones, speakers, hand tools, electric vehicle motors, and cell phones. REEs were recovered from a complex waste stream containing two magnet compositions, showing the technology’s robustness. Hundreds of kilograms of feedstock materials were processed and rare-earth oxides with purity between 99.7 – 99.9% were recovered. A commercial partner has been identified who will use the recovered rare-earth oxide to produce metal. Afterward, the metal will be used to produce new permanent magnets. High-purity copper was also recovered as a byproduct of the recycling process. The Phase II goal is to establish the capacity to produce rare-earth oxide obtained via the ADR technology at a commercially profitable scale. A company that will purchase tons of the product has been identified, and more will be identified as the Phase II work is being completed. Hence, the ADR process will be commercialized for large-scale recovery of REEs from waste feedstock materials, byproducts of the scaled-up recycling technology will be valorized, and techno- economic analyses will be performed to guide the commercialization strategy. Consequently, process adjustments necessary for a more-profitable commercialization will be applied. Of the >15.25 billion pounds of e-waste generated in the U.S. in 2019, ~13 billion pounds remain unrecovered, and the lack of robust technology limited REE recovery for re-use from the 15% that was recovered. Commercializing the ADR process will greatly reduce these environmental pollutants while recovering high-value materials critical for U.S. technology manufacturing, the economy, and national security.