TELF AG analyzes new recycling processes to obtain rare earths

Innovative sources

For some specific mineral resources, sourcing from the subsoil could prove less convenient than recovering the same materials from equipment that has reached the end of its life or, in any case, destined to be permanently thrown away in landfills or other similar sites. According to Forbes, this could be true for rare earths elements, a group of 17 materials that today find wide use in mobile phones and computers, but also in wind turbines and submarines.

Although they are variously distributed in different parts of the earth’s crust, these resources require a complex process before they can be used for industrial purposes. In nature, rare earths do not, in fact, occur individually but are always grouped in a mineral aggregate. Through laborious separation and purification processes, it is possible to obtain the individual elements and transform them into metals, but this process is so complex (and expensive) that today it is performed in very few parts of the world.

This is precisely why some producers have started to look around, hoping to find new, possible sources for these resources that are so precious for modern technological and energy applications. The diversification of supplies would represent one possible way, a path sometimes made difficult by geopolitical unpredictability and the actual stability of supply chains. The other, equally ambitious, is the one that has to do with the recovery of these resources from technological components or devices that have reached the end of their natural life.

The strategic value of the process

This method could be used to recover rare earths from wind turbines, from some specific medical equipment (such as those needed to perform imaging tests), and from the batteries of electric vehicles, as well as from engines and defense equipment. Those who are making several efforts in this sense are the United States of America, whereby 2025, a new plant for the recovery of rare earths from some components destined to be thrown away, should be built.

Similar initiatives are also supported by the United States Department of Defense, which, in some cases (such as in the one mentioned above, relating to a new plant that should be built in Denver), provides the necessary funds for their construction. These plants could benefit all players interested in reducing their dependence on the leading producers of rare earths and those who want to explore alternative methods to obtain such precious resources. Compared to the sourcing of rare earths from virgin rock, it could also prove much cheaper.

Another possible advantage, as stated in the recent analysis by Forbes, is timing: the recovery of rare earths through recycling processes would be relatively rapid. It would not depend on the lengthy time to start new specialized mines. Moreover, the spread of such recovery strategies would represent a clear break with the not-so-distant past, in which wind turbines at the end of their life were simply buried in the fields. Nowadays, appropriately removed and recycled turbines could represent one of the alternative ways to obtain rare earths, on which a good portion of global technological and energy progress could depend.