Rare Earth Recycling fromNdFeB

Abstract

AbstractRare earths are becoming increasingly important in modern industry due to their essential role in permanent magnets, nickel metal‐hydride batteries, lamp phosphors, catalysts, glass industry, and in other applications. Recycling is one of the main approaches by which to acquire rare earth metals for new production, and shows prominent advantages over processing natural ores with regard to separation process, economic effectiveness, and operator's health. Recycling of rare earths from NdFeB magnet scrap has attracted more attention because of the ever‐increasing demand for neodymium magnets. Presently, only in‐plant NdFeB magnet scrap has been recovered by manufacturers, and the out‐of‐plant scrap from end‐of‐life is hardly recycled. This is mainly attributed to inefficient collection, technological disadvantages, and lack of policy supports. The establishment of efficient, fully integrated recycling technologies free of new waste is highly needed and can probably be realized in the future by taking advantage of current literature on rare earth recycling from NdFeB magnet scrap. In this paper, the state of the art in preprocessing end‐of‐life products containing NdFeB magnets and the final rare earth extraction is reviewed, with the main attention to the fundamental understanding of chemistry in the recycling process.