Public Funding for Lightning Machines Limited

The number of electric vehicles (EV's) on the worlds roads has been forecast to increase by 1300% to 145 million by 2030, the increase driven by consumer demand and government legislation. Modern EV's are powered by motors containing powerful magnets to make them more efficient. These magnets contain neodymium and dysprosium, known as 'rare earth elements' (REE's) that are largely produced in China, who export these as rare earth oxides (REO's) for use in the manufacture of these high-powered magnets. To reduce the UK's dependence on imported REO's and to create our own supply, we must find a way to recycle old EV motors to recover the REO's within the magnets to re-use them in the manufacturing of new products. The dominant technique for recycling magnets is through hydrogen decrepitation, an established technique that involves exposing the magnet to hydrogen that breaks it down into a powder form. These magnets are however embedded in a strong resin that prevents access of hydrogen to the magnet. The current state-of-the-art is therefore to shred the motors to recover major metals such as iron, however the small quantities of REO's are 'lost' in the shredded mass and it is uneconomical to sort and process the motor waste to recover the REO's. This project will use electric pulse fragmentation (EPF), a new novel technology that uses controlled small electrical discharges of up to 200kV to break apart solid materials. The hypothesis to be verified in this feasability study is that magnets can be freed from the resin using this process. Lightning Machines Limited will treat samples of EV rotors containing resin-locked magnets with their new technology and the University of Warwick will analyse the products of this treatment and assess the performance of the process and quality of material recovered. The partners will then perform a SWOT analysis and investigate the potential for the industrial upscaling of the technology, and disseminate the findings of this study through publication in scientific journals.