Public Funding for Hypromag Ltd

PULSE (Power electronics Upscale for Localisation and Sustainable Electrification) will bring to market new, UK developed, power-electronics products and a dedicated make-like-production pilot line. Protean Electric will develop an 800V SiC Twinverter, 800V in-wheel-motor, and an integrated drive unit. Unipart will bring decades of advanced manufacturing expertise to create a first-of-its-kind flexible assembly line, that can build a mixture of inverters and converters, including Viritech's advanced DC/DC 800V converter. The collaboration builds on sensor technology from Transense and recycling processes from Hypromag, increasing efficiency and improving lifecycle sustainability, whilst industrialising best-in-class research from Coventry University and Warwick Manufacturing Group.

Rare earth magnets, based upon neodymium iron boron (NdFeB), are a key component / material in direct drive wind turbines, where they are used in the generator. However these materials are top of the risk register on the UK's critical minerals list. The UK has vast wind resources and as such the government has invested heavily, in particular, in offshore wind turbines where direct drive turbines play a key role. As these turbines reach end of life it will present a significant opportunity as a secondary source for recycling or re-use. The aim of the Re-REwind project is to develop a circular economy for rare earth magnets from end-of-life wind turbines. This additional volume will be critical for not only the UK, but also the global decarbonisation agenda, with this being 'additional' material which can help avoid the upcoming global supply shortfall which is predicted. This project will look to build the basis for a new complete circular supply chain for these magnets, a completely new industry and sector which the UK currently does not have. To do this, it will tackle several key challenges; firstly how to dismantle the turbines, secondly to develop techniques to safely demagnetise and separate the rare earth magnets from the generators and then how to purify and to recycle the extracted materials back into new NdFeB magnets with properties which can be used in another generator. The Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (OREC) will undertake a life cycle, and techno economic assessment, looking at the opportunity for recycled magnets, and critically their CO2 footprint, relative to virgin supply. This will allow the UK to fully understand the additional material which can be supplied, and the competitive advantage these will bring. All partners are also heavily involved in improving and disseminating industry best practise with regards to the safe handling of magnets. This will look at demagnetisation options, in addition to handling of full assemblies, magnet stacks, and recovered alloy powders.

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NdFeB magnets play a critical role in the fight against climate change as they are used in clean technologies such as wind turbines generators and motors in electric vehicles. As we transition to an electrically driven society then the demand for these materials will increase almost exponentially. The supply of these materials is geographically concentrated in certain parts of the globe and these materials have been identified as being of greatest supply risk compared to all other energy related materials by the EU. The aim of SCREAM is to provide a UK based supply of these materials by recycling magnets from end of life scrap (EoL). HyProMag, Mkango Rare Earths UK, GKN Hybrid Power, European Metal Recycling (EMR), Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Bowers and Wilkins and the University of Birmingham (UoB) will work together in the SCREAM project to secure critical permanent magnets for the UK. The SCREAM consortium will demonstrate two innovative paths to introduce scrap material back into the rare earth supply chain. The first is to scale up a process developed at the University of Birmingham, "Hydrogen Processing of Magnetic Scrap" from automotive, robotic, separator, loudspeaker scrap streams. The second is to produce a mixed rare earth carbonate for the rare earth supply chain. HyProMag will scale this process to develop magnets that are different grades for a range of applications. Bowers and Wilkins, GKN and JLR will assess the suitability of the magnets for a range of products, and calculate the environmental footprint for production of these materials. The output of the project will be motors, loudspeakers and holding magnet applications containing recycled magnets.

Rare earth magnets based upon neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) are a key material in electric vehicles where they are used in drive motors,generators, power steering and in loudspeakers. In recent years the supply of rare earths has come under considerable constraint from the main producer, China. Recycling of rare earth magnets presents a significant opportunity and REAP aims to develop a recycling supply chain for the loudspeaker market. REAP (Rare-Earth Extraction from Audio Products) will investigate novel ways of liberating rare earth magnets from automotive and consumer audio modules. EMR will pre-process automotive and flat screen TV loudspeaker scrap to provide a feed of scrap components containing NdFeB magnets to HyProMag Ltd. HyProMag will evaluate a patented process in conjunction with the University of Birmingham to extract the magnets as a demagnetised alloy powder, which can be used in the remanufacture of magnets. The quality, quantity, availability and value of the scrap will be determined for speakers from various sources and a calculation of value added to the scrap will be made. The short loop recycling processes which are being developed by Hypromag Ltd will have a significant environmental benefit compared to primary production of magnets.

RaRE will establish an end to end supply chain for recycled rare-earth ancillary motors. Building on work completed at the University of Birmingham to devise a method to extract magnets from waste electronics the process will be scaled and the material re-processed back into new magnetic materials at pilot scale by Hypromag to demonstrate the quality of material which can be produced in terms of its magnetic behaviour, mechanical performance and corrosion resistance which are key to the end user application. The recycled magnets will be built into an ancillary electric motor designed by Advanced Electric Machines Research to a Bentley Motors specification and focused on reducing the overall complexity of electrical systems in electric vehicles and designed with recycling in mind. This will be the first time that such a recycled motor will have been demonstrated. Unipart will take this motor design and use it as the core focus for the design of a flexible volume motor assembly line suitable for production volumes of 100,000 units p.a.