New-RE Project

EU countries have limited primary sources of Rare Earths: therefore, more than 95% of REEs (Rare Earth Elements) is currently imported from China. In order to reduce the importations of these Critical Raw Materials, the New-RE project will improve the recycling of the Permanent Magnets (PMs) contained in end-of-life hard disk drives (HDDs), motors of electric vehicles (EVs), and other waste. New-RE recycling is based on a sustainable hydrometallurgical process, that will allow to leach Rare Earths from other materials by using organic acid solutions with a very low environmental impact, such as citric acid. Moreover, an automated system for the dismantling of the PMs contained in hard disks will be developed and tested, as well as a demagnetization process to recover PMs from electric motors. The project outputs will be TRL7 technologies validated through pilot demonstrators for the hydrometallurgical process and for the dismantling system. The project will offer waste treatment operators the opportunity to extract and recover Rare Earths and increase their profit margins, by playing the role of European suppliers of REEs, boron and iron pigments. New-RE will improve the circularity of Rare Earths in Europe, thus reducing costs, increasing profits, and lowering environmental impact.