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Hydrogen plasma assisted recycling process of end-of-life Nd-Fe-B based
permanent magnets
Conference Paper · July 2025
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REPM2025
Oral | Raw materials
Tue. Jul 29, 2025 3:15 PM - 4:35 PM JST | Tue. Jul 29, 2025 6:15 AM - 7:35 AM UTC Convention
Hall(300, 3F)
[O8] Raw Materials & Recycling II
Session Chair: Prof. Gopalan Raghavan(International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and
New Materials)
4:05 PM - 4:20 PM JST | 7:05 AM - 7:20 AM UTC
[O8-4] Hydrogen plasma assisted recycling process of end-of-life Nd-Fe-B
based permanent magnets
*Rafael Gitti Tortoretto Fim 1, Nartai Chimed 1, Tim Schwartz 1, Ilya Radulov2, Oliver Diehl 2,
Jürgen Gassman 2, Dierk Raabe 1, Matic Jovičević-Klug 1 (1. Max-Planck-Institute for
Sustainable Materials (MPI SusMat) (Germany), 2. IWKS Fraunhofer Research Institution for
Materials Recycling and Resources Strategies (Germany))
Keywords Recycling Nd-Fe-B bulk waste Permanent magnets recycling Sustainability
Nd-Fe-B based permanent magnets are one of the key building blocks in the transition to
more sustainable technologies, from green energy production and energy conversion to
fossil-free mobility. The annual demand for Rare-Earth (RE)-based permanent magnets is
expected to increase up to 4.5% until the end of this decade (2020 – 2030), for which
37.8% of the total REE demand is dedicated for permanent magnets manufacturing [1].
Major share of this demand is related to critical REEs, that have very low recyclability (1 –
2 wt.%) and high carbon footprint (up to 100s of kg CO2-eq/kg), such as neodymium (Nd),
dysprosium (Dy) and terbium (Tb). Highly efficient recycling and a low environmental
impact process are critical to the long-term availability and improved sustainability of the
growing Nd-Fe-B based magnets market [2]. So far, there have been few Nd-Fe-B
recycling strategies reported in the literature exploring the reuse of end-of-life (EoL)
magnet waste for permanent magnet production. The so-called magnet-to-magnet
approach focuses on the pulverization of the EoL magnets through the hydrogen
decrepitation (HD) process, which allows the reintroduction of the base Nd-Fe-B material
into the production chain. Although simplifying of the recycling loop can reduce the
environmental impact of the magnet production chain by up to 96%. The increased
amount of contamination by oxygen and other elements (e.g. carbon and nitrogen) is a
limiting factor in obtaining high-performance sintered magnets through multiple reuse
cycles [3]. In this context, the Hydrogen-based Plasma Smelting Reduction (HPSR) process
emerges as a candidate to overcome several of the mentioned limitations of existing Nd-
Fe-B recycling methods. The potential of the HPSR for green steel production has been
reported using a hydrogen lean thermal plasma (Ar – 10% H2) to reduce iron ores [4] and
to extract iron from bauxite refining waste residue [5]. The outcome of this process was a
high purity Fe with a negligible impurity content and demonstrated purification of the
feed from volatile and intrusive elements through evaporation. The HPSR process is
versatile in many aspects: the use of hydrogen as the reducing element eliminates carbon-
based emissions, the high-energy plasma enables the reduction/decontamination step
within minutes, and there are practically no limitations regarding the input material. As
mentioned above, the HPSR provides the unique potential opportunity to overcome the
2025 REPM2025
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key issues regarding Nd-Fe-B, the performance of recycled magnets and their multiple
reuse. In this research study, we test the potential of the HPSR process as an alternative
recycling process of commercial grade Nd-Fe-B waste magnets and provide insight into its
potential influence on selected figure of merits. References[1] Roskill Information
Services Ltd, Rare Earths: Outlook to 2029, 2019.[2] Crownhart, C. (2024, August 21). This
rare earth metal shows us the future of our planet’s resources. MIT Technology Review.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/08/21/1096469/neodymium-rare-earth-
materials-supply-chain/ [3] Schönfeldt, M., Rohrmann, U., Schreyer, P., Hasan, M., Opelt,
K., Gassmann, J., Weidenkaff, A., & Gutfleisch, O. (2023). Magnetic and structural properties
of multiple recycled and sustainable sintered Nd-Fe-B magnets. Journal of Alloys and
Compounds, 939, 168709.[4] Souza Filho, I. R., Ma, Y., Kulse, M., Ponge, D., Gault, B.,
Springer, H., & Raabe, D. (2021). Sustainable steel through hydrogen plasma reduction of
iron ore: Process, kinetics, microstructure, chemistry. Acta Materialia, 213, 116971. [5]
Jovičević-Klug, M., Souza Filho, I. R., Springer, H., Adam, C., & Raabe, D. (2024). Green steel
from red mud through climate-neutral hydrogen plasma reduction. Nature, 625(7996), 703–
709.
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