The recycling of rare-earth permanent magnets: an industrial and geopolitical challenge for Europe
Info
Recycling will play a role in European sovereignty regarding critical raw materials… but it is far from sufficient on its own. The development of new mining and industrial capacities in Europe will also remain essential.
♻️ On Thursday, May 21, the GeMMe - Université de Liège participated in another LIEGE CREATIVE event organized as part of the PAE e-green conference series, focusing on a strategic issue for Europe: the recycling of rare-earth permanent magnets.
On this occasion, our lab manager David Bastin shared the stage with Gregory Lewis (Groupe Comet) to analyze the industrial, technological, and geopolitical challenges associated with these materials, which have become essential to the energy transition.
Permanent magnets (PM) are now at the heart of many technologies: traction motors for electric vehicles, wind turbines, medical equipment, electronics, drones… and European demand is only increasing.
Behind these technological developments lies a more complex reality:
➡️ China accounts for a large portion of global refining and production capacity for permanent magnets;
➡️ heavy rare earth elements (REE), essential for the highest-performance magnets, remain particularly critical;
➡️ recycling industries are rising in EU but remain limited in terms of capacity compared to the EU demand;
➡️ although the recycling value chain will have an impact on our global environmental footprint, even when at full industrial scale, this part of the value chain will only cover a limited part of EU needs;
➡️ the primary mining sector remains the key for feeding the loop;
➡️ EU has to strengthen its international partnerships with the mining sector.
David Bastin highlighted the work being conducted at GeMMe on the automated sorting of components and magnets and the hydrometallurgical recycling of permanent magnets. These developments are being driven at the regional level through the Reverse Metallurgy partnership under the Next Generation EU program, alongside the European projects PERMANET and MAGELLAN, which aim to build a genuine European value chain for REE and PM.
Among the challenges identified:
🔹 better identifying and sorting end-of-life magnets despite their wide chemical and technological variability;
🔹 preventing the loss of small magnets currently diluted in conventional metal streams;
🔹 developing processes capable of reintroducing these critical materials into an efficient circular economy.
As part of the REEFINE project, GeMMe has notably developed a pilot unit capable of recycling up to 4 kg/day of PM using hydrometallurgical processes.
For his part, Gregory Lewis brought COMET’s industrial perspective on recycling: adapting the pre-crushing stage, selectively extracting high-value-added components, and continuously developing new technologies to address the evolving nature of metal waste.
A common observation throughout the meeting: recycling will play a role in European sovereignty regarding critical raw materials… but it is far from sufficient on its own. The development of new mining and industrial capacities in Europe will also remain essential.
