Sustainable Magnets and Recycling

The research group focuses on advancing the sustainability of magnetic materials and their processing, as well as improving the sustainability perspectives of materials recycling and elemental extraction. Ultimately, the group strives to provide new understanding and fundamentals for developing these two research perspectives with respect to low-CO2 technologies and cost-effective processes for future materials designing. By fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, the team aims to accelerate the transition toward a circular economy. The group scientifically focuses on providing new experimental and theoretical understanding to bridge sustainability, magnetism, and recycling into a common research field in relation to both the production of new materials as well as the re-use of decommissioned, scrap, and waste material.

Current technology and sustainable efforts for the decarbonization of the world rely strongly on the availability of magnetic materials due to their direct use in electric motors, transformers, and data storage devices. With the market size estimated at around 40 billion EUR and a rapid annual growth of about 9%, magnetic materials are delivering a high impact on the future development of society and technology. Much like alloys, magnetic materials also offer a large variety of properties based on their chemistry, crystallography, and structure. In turn, such versatility allows corresponding tailoring of extrinsic magnetic and physical properties required for individual applications. As a result, a large and complex assembly of magnets are available on the market that, after their lifetime, need to be properly recycled and/or re-used. Currently, the main challenge of magnetic materials lies within two perspectives. (1) Production of magnets with low CO2 emission and a reduced amount of rare earth elements used in them, coupled with low costs and high performance. (2) Sustainable recycling of magnetic materials with high efficiency, low costs, and low consumption of resources and energy. Both points are extremely important in the field of permanent magnets due to the high sensitivity of magnetic properties to defects, impurities, grain boundaries, and restructuring of the material that are challenging to control within a single process on a bulk scale. Additionally, when magnetic materials are considerably oxidized or mixed with impurity materials, their corresponding recycling routes are usually limited to hydrometallurgical extraction. These conventional methods are both highly CO2-intensive as well as detrimental to the environment due to the use of excessive amounts of environmentally-hazardous chemicals.

Comparatively, the recycling aspects of permanent magnets also extend to other material classes such as smart materials, electronics, batteries, as well as simply raw alloys and base materials. Similarly to the permanent magnets, many recycling processes of such materials are based on chemical-based processes that, despite their reasonable costs, can be both CO2-intensive and environmentally damaging. For all materials, the recycling topic ranges beyond the materials themselves to also include the by-products and waste material obtained from the production and subsequent processing of the sought-out material. These additional products can be, on the one hand, considerably detrimental to the environment, and on the other, they can hold highly-valuable compounds and elements that are fundamental for the progress of society and technology. Recovering these secondary resources not only mitigates environmental impact but also secures critical supply chains for future technological advancements.

With both topics in mind, the new group addresses the necessary development of new processes and technology to perform both material production and recycling in a novel and sustainable manner with low CO2 emissions. By focusing on unconventional pathways and materials, the group aims at pioneering novel theoretical, practical, and cost-effective development of material processing and engineering. This comprehensive approach will enable future sustainable technology for material extraction, production, and recycling. The major vision of the group is to focus on the missing key research elements that can be supplied through experimental and theoretical know-how, ranging from material synthesis and processing, to propel new ideas and technology integration into the field of magnetics and recycling, ultimately shaping a more resilient and eco-friendly materials landscape.

The group acts as connecting entity between several groups through strong synergetic collaboration with the groups of: