5th GA of the MAGELLAN Project
Université de Liège – GeMMe enthusiastically participated in the 5th General Assembly of the MAGELLAN Project EU, gathering European partners in Rueil-Malmaison, France, on April 8 and 9, 2026.
ULiège leads WP4 on the “Recycling of End-of-Life (EoL) Permanent Magnets (PM) containing Heavy Rare Earth Elements (HREE).” During the meeting, our colleague David Bastin presented the latest developments within WP4. In addition, Gilles Jacquemin, now fully engaged in Rare Earth Elements (REE) R&D at GeMMe, shared the results of Task 4.5 on the characterization and qualification of outputs.
ULiège is also leading two tasks within WP5, focused on the “Validation of Sustainability and Responsibility of the MAGELLAN solution for PMs.” This work addresses responsible sourcing of REE and HREE from both primary (mining) and secondary (recycling) sources. As part of this effort, guidelines developed under Task 5.5 on responsible sourcing and sustainability in REE use were presented by Harri Kaikkonen of Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) / Geologian tutkimuskeskus (GTK).
The event was hosted by IFPEnergiesNouvelles, who also organized a site visit. This offered MAGELLAN partners valuable insight into how teams design and test next-generation electric motors, combining advanced modelling with experimental validation to optimize performance. It was particularly interesting to see how IFPEN’s experts integrate the MAGELLAN “short-loop” REE recycling process, and notably its associated permanent magnet products, into their work on electric vehicle motor optimization and testing.
We thank all participants for a great event. Special thanks to the entire IFPEN team and Misa Milosavljevic for hosting a successful General Assembly and to the Orano team for a highly motivated and passionate project coordination (Benoit Richebé, Laure TRANNOY-COLINET).
