Abstract
Neodymium recycling by the mineral processing practice of liberation and separation of hard disk drives is envisioned and evaluated. Magnetic material is liberated from the hard drive, constructed mostly of malleable metals, by preferential degradation of the brittle magnet material. The process developed is shown to recover greater than ninety-five percent of the magnet material with a product grade of over 80% magnet material by mass. The process is designed to co-produce stainless steel , aluminum, nickel alloy, carbon steel, and printed circuit board concentrates as contributors to the recycle value of hard drives.
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Acknowledgements
This work was completed with support from the Critical Materials Institute, an Energy Innovation Hub funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Manufacturing Office.
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© 2019 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society
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Ott, B., Spiller, D.E., Taylor, P.R. (2019). Rare Earth Magnet Recovery from Hard Drives by Preferential Degradation. In: Gaustad, G., et al. REWAS 2019. The Minerals, Metals & Materials Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10386-6_34
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10386-6_34
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Online ISBN: 978-3-030-10386-6
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