HyProMag Germany Hits Commissioning Milestone?But Scale Still Defines Value

[DOC]

Mkango's HyProMag commissions commercial-scale rare earth magnet recycling vessel in Germany, advancing Europe's supply chain sovereignty. (read full article...)

 

[soda47]

Mkango's HyProMag commissions commercial-scale rare earth magnet recycling vessel in Germany, advancing Europe's supply chain sovereignty. (read full article...)

I do find it great to read articles about Hypromag, jointly owned by listed companies Mkango and CoTec, and how the commercialisation of the technology is progressing. However, I do not understand the feeling of negativity I get running through the article. Hypromag's HPMS technology is the easiest way to produce a Western supply of rare earth magnets. You pretty much put old magnets into a vessel with hydrogen and they are broken down into a powder. Unbelievably, that powder is virtually ready for making new magnets at incredibly low cost. These magnets produced from recycled material have been tested in real life with reported excellent performance. Surely Governments in the Western world if they are really serious about producing their own source of new magnets should be falling over themselves to get money behind this technology as soon as possible and legislation is introduced to ensure recycled scrap magnets are not exported and there are incentives for accumulating them?
Clearly mining is also important but it is very over emphasised, especially this decade. There are very few mines currently ready to go outside of MP Materials and Lynas. Mkango actually has one in Malawi (Songwe Hill) with a mining permit and Pensana is another one I believe. USAR's Round Top is slated for late 2028 but in reality it will probably not be this decade and Tanbreez in Greenland is probably even further out than that especially as Greenland is remote and has little infrastructure and the ore type may even make it implausible to mine in practice. And with mining the pathway to producing rare earth magnets is still a long, expensive and complicated process including separating the rare earths out from mining concentrate using dirty solvent extraction (althpough Ucore's Rapid SX modular, columnar approach is a promising alternative), metallisation and alloy making. Most of the knowledge for these steps is held within China and there is a lot of technology in the West that is still at pilot or demonstration stage.
IMO DYOR

 

[John]

Hi @soda47

I get wht you are saying....recycling could be a great outcome for the west. But we get a little sceptical of recycling. Every industry says it can make recycling work at scale. But mostly that never happens. At best it accounts for a small percentage of output.

I think the key with rare earth/magnet recycling is feed stock. Not just the amount available but the composition as well.

Also - there are alot of companies focused on this area....we get emails weekly from small recycling upstarts, saying they have "an edge" over other companeis.

Here is a business idea for someone out there (happy to be involved) - how about securing all the feedstock for the recyclers....and preparing it for their processing....

my email is john@rareearthexchanges.com

 

[John]

Also - above...with your mines....the next "at scale" rare earth mine is Arafura (ASX:ARU). They have done 21 years of 'hard yards' to get to this position. They are miles ahead of the others. And most importantly...they are going to oxide. And they have massive cost overrun facilites to ensure it will be commisioned without extra funding needed.

The others....double check what they are actually going to produce. Oxide is king.