Why rare earth recycling and what we can do very little? (Two)

Electronic products so valuable presence of iridium head to achieve better recovery .

"When a small amount of rare earth is just a part of a complex mixture , separating the individual may be too expensive , there are many electronic products are more valuable elements such as gold, palladium , iridium, which can make recycling more cost-effective. "Rare Earth will be able to pay part of the cost of treatment , and the gold , platinum, palladium can be used as cash flow, " The key to recycling rare earths Institute for Materials Research Program , the Idaho National Laboratory says Eric Peterson < br />
Meanwhile rare earth recycling technology challenges are enormous , Graedel said , this is not the main problem. "I think it 's fair to say the recovery and recycling of rare earth and other things to do , like , the biggest challenge lies in how these products are collected , " he said. "It's more of a community , perhaps the challenge is not a challenge to the management of technology. "

Under price pressure , at least for now , some laws require recovery, but it is actually no incentive for recycling. In 2011 , only less than 1% of the rare earths are recovered back. People tend to hoard or throw away old cell phones and cars , when people drive in from the windshield to the rear-view mirror these devices are included in the motor , there may be no more than two dozen rare earth recycling back. In some developing countries , many electronic products could end up in unsafe or inefficient way removed. Even fluorescent light bulbs , the law provides for the recycling of its mercury lamp , but the recovery rate is only about 30% -35%
Many experts say that the existing recycling facilities makes fluorescent rare earth recycling is a good target , using rare earth elements to produce fluorescent colors : red and green phosphor europium and terbium rare earth elements inside . Recyclers to collect mercury glass lamp and metal parts, but they are usually dumped off the lamp containing rare white phosphor , some companies are currently recycling these .

LED lighting is more efficient , but the way the current recovery is not very clear , LED lights now in the popular stage , a large number of fluorescent and compact fluorescent lamps can be used for several decades, Peterson said , so the LED is still very good recovery targets . LED lights use much less rare than the use of rare earth fluorescent lamps , which makes them more than the recovery of rare earth trichromatic fluorescent harder . "I do not yet believe , from the light-emitting diodes can be very effective recovery of rare earths economy," Ames Laboratory Alex King said.

Another promising to improve the recovery of rare earths , is used in a concentration of industry in the field rather than the hands of consumers , the use of wind turbines in the rare earth permanent magnet motor , such as neodymium and dysprosium to stronger magnetic force , the offshore wind power equipment maintenance difficulties, so companies tend to install the most reliable equipment , which this device may contain hundreds of kilograms of rare earth elements. They contain a large amount of rare earth, but they are concentrated in the almost stationary wind farm , which makes the recovery of rare earths in wind turbines become very viable , " This is a good opportunity , which makes the rare earths have a happy first Second life , "Graedel said.

Despite the challenges , some companies are working to carry out the recovery of rare earth . Rhodia has announced a number of rare earth recycling projects . Mitsubishi Motors reported that in 2012 , it recovered and reused from the air conditioner recycling of rare earth permanent magnets , Hitachi announced the development of recycling rare earth magnet recycling machine from the hard drive and air conditioning , and tried the technology into commercial operation . Honda also announced last year that it had started recovering rare earth elements from hybrid car batteries .

The design for the recovery

Experts have pointed out , containing rare earth products recovered before production on the roadmap for the design, will contribute to a better recovery .

If electronic products easily disassembled components will be easier to recycle .

One way is separated at an early stage , if the volume of the magnet is small , as long as they crush all magnetic materials, powder only maintain : " iron " , you'll lose them.
In this country, we do not know how the system by recycling and good things, and we must learn how to do it .

Kim said that the product can be designed to be easily disassembled , for example, his team is trying to reclaim from the phone 's screen phosphors inside . But you can ask the manufacturer to design a mobile phone screen before the phone was crushed can be removed to .

Another possibility is to use the device to recover rare earths , we are working with several electronics manufacturers to communicate , to make them understand how to design a circuit board from the elements cerium component easy to pick out , Peterson said, " one kind approach is based on the circuit board in different layers, each with different materials and to make the height of the order that they may be scraped off with , "or a rare earth metal content to the design simulation for reuse , said Peterson .

Of course , these assumptions are based on a large enough product to be recovered , such as wind turbines , and its life is generally 20-30 years, which means that they have no way for a long time for recovery .


In a recent study , the Dutch Green Academy Gemayel Rademaker and colleagues calculated that the rare earth magnets assuming your computer's hard drive , hybrid cars and wind turbines can be 100% recycled , the amount can be recovered back only accounted for from now to 2015 at 10% to 15% of the demand, but by 2020 this proportion would have been a downward trend, although demand has been growing, but only the computer hard disk drive can be used for recycling.

However, with the car and the wind turbine reaches its life, in 2030 , the number of theoretical recycled back to meet the needs of more than 20% . "In the long run, it may have some impact," Rademaker said.

Wait until the economic, legislative and needs to keep up with the time, the idea of ​​saving the metal, in the future , the only trapped on the device.

"Some people say we should landfill, and wait for better technology, " Rademaker said. "It was the idea of ​​urban mining , if any space, but not dangerous, can be landfilled , to keep the metal until we know how who get the time.

With the continuous development of the recovery strategy and the growing demand for rare earths , believes the arrival of this moment is not too far away !


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