Industrial process for extraction of rare earth elements from waste electric and electronic equipment

Purpose and goal

The prestudy should investigate and clarify fundamental conditions for developing, implementing and commercializing a process for recovery of rare earth metals (from waste electrical and electronic equipment. The goal is to generate necessary information to judge the possibility to realize and commercialize an industrial process as well as take decisions on next step and route. The results achieved in the project have provided a solid basis for Nordic Recycling to decide to continue the commercialization of the developed process, which will be done in a verification project.

Results and expected effects

The project has enabled an optimization and adjustment of the process to fit a full-scale plant. The market investigation that was carried out shows both a sufficient availability of relevant waste flows and demand for recoverable rare earth oxides. To recycle the metals requires 60% less energy and exerts 80% less human toxicity effect than the extraction of metals from primary source (ore). A large-scale process has been developed in the project and a net present value calculation shows that the IRR is about 30% for a commercial process which is very promising.

Approach and implementation

The work was divided into 5 work packages: i) Technical conditions; ii) Market conditions and business/investment calculation; iii) Contribution to sustainable development; iv) Development potential; and v) Conclusions and next step. The work packages i-iii) were distributed among the partners whereas iv-v) were mainly carried out jointly. A consultant in process engineering and scale-up was engaged for process design and business calculations. Discussions were carried out with suppliers of waste, potential buyers of rare earth oxides, and suppliers of process technology.