Fully circular UK supply chain for rare earth magnets with high grade automotive applications
A three-year, £6.5 million project will be a significant step forward in supporting the UK’s transition to zero emission mobility.
Rare earth magnets are used in hybrid and electric vehicles.
Researchers from the University of Birmingham will be working on a new collaborative project to establish a fully circular UK supply chain for rare earth neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets used in the automotive sector.
The three-year, £6.5 million Rare Earth Automotive Circular Technologies for the UK (REACT-UK) project brings together a strong UK consortium to recover and recycle magnets from end-of-life hybrid and electric vehicles and deliver automotive-grade magnets from this recycled material.
REACT-UK will be a significant step forward in supporting the UK’s transition to zero emission mobility, strengthening domestic manufacturing capability, and embedding circular economy principles at scale. The project will be led by HyProMag Ltd. Other partners in the consortium are Mkango Rare Earths UK, EMR Group Limited, Jaguar Land Rover, Less Common Metals, and the University of Birmingham.
During REACT-UK, researchers from the University of Birmingham’s Magnetic Materials Group will investigate the use of grain boundary diffusion on the recycled magnets.
REACT-UK will catalyse a UK supply of magnets for automotive drive motor applications, ensuring that cost and sustainability are maximised for different performance requirements. This is a very strong consortium and the developments through the project provide a real step change to the UK’s already existing rare earth supply chain.
Professor Allan Walton, Head of Birmingham’s Magnetic Materials Group explained the rationale for this area of the project: “Grain boundary diffusion techniques are used to improve magnet ‘coercivity’, which indicates how well a magnet holds its magnetism (coercive force) when exposed to external stresses such as heat or external magnetic fields, enabling higher magnet performance with less heavy rare earth usage.”
About REACT-UK
The REACT-UK project will further develop technologies to extract these magnets from hybrid and electric vehicle drive motors and make the rotors suitable for downstream extraction of magnets using Hydrogen Processing of Magnet Scrap (HPMS) developed at the University of Birmingham and exclusively licensed by HyProMag Ltd.
HPMS will be used to liberate NdFeB magnets from drive motor assemblies as a demagnetised NdFeB alloy powder, which will then feed multiple parts of the value chain. NdFeB alloy powder will be fed to Mkango UK to chemically extract neodymium, dysprosium and terbium from the alloy powder as an oxide. The oxide will be converted into metals and alloyed by Less Common Metals, who will also process HPMS generated NdFeB powder straight through to strip cast alloys by the direct re-melt route.
The strip cast alloys produced from both these routes will be blended with HPMS NdFeB powder and then processed by milling, magnetic alignment, pressing and sintering into new NdFeB magnets by HyProMag.
Post sintering, the University of Birmingham will investigate the use of grain boundary diffusion of heavy rare earths to increase the coercivity of the magnets.
The project will target a high coercivity grade of magnet used across Jaguar Land Rover drive motor rotors. Jaguar Land Rover will provide information to the EMR Group on locations for magnets on vehicles to develop a mass balance across their vehicles and provide guidance on disassembly procedures, and EMR will provide a feedback loop to Jaguar Land Rover design engineers, to facilitate future circular economy principles for magnet containing components.
The project is funded by an award from the UK Department for Business and Trade, from the DRIVE35 (Driving Research & Investment in Vehicle Electrification) programme which is delivered in partnership with the Advanced Propulsion Centre and Innovate UK.
Ian Constance, Chief Executive of the Advanced Propulsion Centre commented: “This multi-million-pound support package is more than an investment in technology; it is an investment in the people, skills, and companies that will define the future of clean transport. Together, we are building the foundations of a competitive, resilient, and sustainable automotive industry.”
Nick Mann, Managing Director of HyProMag Ltd said: “REACT-UK will catalyse a UK supply of magnets for automotive drive motor applications, ensuring that cost and sustainability are maximised for different performance requirements. This is a very strong consortium and the developments through the project provide a real step change to the UK’s already existing rare earth supply chain.”
Notes for editors
Notes for editors
About the University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions, and its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers and teachers and more than 6,500 international students from nearly 150 countries.
About HyProMag
HyProMag’s aim is to develop a full recycling supply chain for rare earth magnets based upon neodymium iron boron (NdFeB). HyProMag has licensed the patented technology called HPMS (Hydrogen Processing of Magnet Scrap) developed in the Magnetic Materials Group (MMG) at the University of Birmingham and is an industrial partner of the facility at Tyseley Energy Park. HyProMag is 100% owned by Maginito Limited (“Maginito”), which is 79.4% owned by Mkango and 20.6% owned by CoTec Holdings (“CoTec”).