Low-Cost Distillation Technology for Rare-Earth Recycling

Recycling has been proposed as a promising potential source of supply to meet some of the U.S. rare-earth demands for use in permanent magnets. The high growth rates of products that make use of rare-earth magnets-particularly wind turbines and electric and hybrid vehicles-show that their stock in use is on the rise and in the near term will become available as scrap feed for recycling. This study presents an overview of magnet recycling technologies and focuses on the technoeconomic analysis of liquid metal leaching and distillation, including the effect of a new continuous gravity-driven multiple effect thermal system (G-METS) metal distillation technology on energy use and overall cost. The G-METS system can potentially reduce the energy consumption of the overall process to 64 kWh/kg, which is about 30% less than metal production from ore, and 61-67% less than the process using conventional distillation.