Mkango's HyProMag commissions commercial-scale rare earth magnet recycling vessel in Germany, advancing Europe's supply chain sovereignty. (read full article...)
HyProMag Germany Hits Commissioning Milestone?But Scale Still Defines Value
- Thread starter DOC
- Start date
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
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
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
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.
The others....double check what they are actually going to produce. Oxide is king.
Hypromag has over 20 years and £100m of R&D spent on it and has been through pilot, demonstration and has now commissioned 2 commercial plants. Very, very few technologies like this get to that stage. Most fail for a whole host of reasons.
I have researched a lot of other rare earth technologies but have found them difficult to invest in (apart from Ucore). There is a commercial recycling plant planned just up the road from me but I just can’t invest in it. Solvent based which is more costly than Hypromag’s hydrogen based technology. It separates out the individual rare earths which had its merits but you still have to undertake metallisation and alloy making to make magnets and there isn’t much of that being done in the Western world.
New recycling technologies, however good they may be at micro scale, have a long path ahead to become proven commercial scale answers and the need is now.
Feedstock can be an issue for recyclers. Hypromag has a tie up with Inserma which have machines to extract magnets at source from HDDs in old computers. This helps with consistency of recycling material but obviously won’t produce enough feedstock to produce magnet needs for the western needs. But it can surely make a real difference and what other realistic options are there right now? Very few!