Mkango Resources said it has produced the first rare earth magnets in the United Kingdom in more than 20 years, a milestone for the energy transition.
The production runs of short-loop recycled rare earth magnets were completed at the Tyseley Energy Park in Birmingham, providing a new domestic source to catalyze the electric vehicle, wind turbine, and other clean technology industries. The production from piloting to date has produced 3,000 finished rare earth magnets, the company said. The pilot was done at the University of Birmingham.
Production of the magnets is also developed with HyProMag, owned by Mkango’s subsidiary Maginito Limited. HyProMag is the main industrial partner for the Tyseley development and the exclusive licensee for underlying Hydrogen Processing of Magnet Scrap (HPMS) technology, which is cleaner and more energy efficient than traditional magnet recycling processes.
According to Mkango, HPMS is a “revolutionary” new recycling technology that preserves the quality of the old magnets for processing. This is more efficient than other methods of dismantling, thermal demagnetization, and cleaning processes.
“This is a major milestone for the Company, HyProMag and for the U.K., creating a strong platform to advance to commercial production and for the scale-up and roll-out of HPMS technology into Germany, United States and other jurisdictions,” said Makngo CEO Will Dawes. “HyProMag’s recycling technology has major competitive advantages versus other recycling technologies, and is a key enabler for the cost effective and energy efficient separation and recycling of rare earth magnets, avoiding the need for dismantling, and enabling the production of magnets with a significantly reduced carbon footprint."
Mkango is planning further production runs in the coming weeks, and commercial production at Tyseley is targeted for mid-2024. The initial throughput at the facility is targeted at 20 tons per year rare earth magnets and alloys, scaling up to a minimum of 100tpa in the following months. Potential larger-scale scenarios up to 1,000 tons per year are also being evaluated.
Over the next few weeks, the remaining equipment and infrastructure at Tyseley will be commissioned as it transitions to commercial production. The initial production runs used recycled raw material feed from wind turbine magnets, voice coil assembly from hard disk drives, and production scrap. It was processed through the existing recycling pilot plant commissioned in 2022 at the University of Birmingham before it was transported for short-loop magnet manufacturing at Tyseley.
The University of Birmingham pilot plant has also produced alloys for remelt testing and chemical processing. Mkango is also developing a further pilot plant at Tyseley for long-loop recycling via a chemical process. The new pilot complements the HyProMag short-loop recycling process and will be commissioned in the coming weeks, the company said.
