GREEN CHEMISTRY and Sustainability

Abstract: The key theme of the project is the reuse of permanent magnets (PM) based on rare earths (RE). The production of PMs is concentrated in China and their demand is steadily growing, which make the REs extremely vulnerable to price fluctuations and shortages. Despite their criticality, just 1% of the REs are recycled from end-of-life (EoL) products.
The aim of Rendering3D is the development of the scientific and technical base for a circular economy of RE based PMs. It involves the controlled milling of EoL magnets to a powder, which is fed to two pipelines. The “sintering” line leads to sintered magnets, both isotropic and anisotropic. The “3D printing” line leads to 3D printed bonded magnets. These processes mainly entail mechanical processing and no process with large environmental footprint is involved.
We will pursue the dissemination of the results towards the stakeholders and raise awareness among citizens to foster a culture of circular economy by public engagement activities.

Activity 2022-2024