(444b) Rare-Earth Elements Recovery from Electronic Waste: Techno-Economic and Life Cycle Analysis

Rare earth elements possess unique magnetic, luminescent, and catalytic properties, making them a key role in our modern life. They are an essential component of many sectors of today’s economy, including high-technological devices, industrial applications, defense, and a wide variety of clean energy technologies.

Electronic waste constitutes a rich source from which rare earth elements can be recovered. Recovering rare earth elements from electronic waste can lower the dependence on mining, stabilize rare earth elements market prices, and reduce the environmental impact of landfilling. Thus, researchers have been focused on developing technologies to recover rare earth elements from electronic waste.

This article presents a technical and environmental assessment of the steps involved in recovering didymium oxide from hard drive shreds through acid-free dissolution recycling. Although this recycling technology already minimizes the environmental impact of the recovery process, the goal of this study is to further improve the economic feasibility while making this process even more environmentally friendly than before. A facility with an annual processing capacity of 342.42 tons of hard drive shreds was modeled for this case study, leading to 2.53 tons of didymium oxide recovered yearly. The results of the techno-economic assessment indicated that the minimum selling price for didymium oxide was 130 $/kg. Furthermore, as the 2022 average market price of didymium oxide were higher than the obtained minimum selling price, this means that this recovery process is economically profitable.

We thank DOE STTR for funding this project.