Cyclic Materials opens pilot plant capable of 8000 tonnes of magnet recycling annually

Advanced metals recycling company Cyclic Materials has achieved successful results from its new Kingston, Ontario, pilot plant, where its proprietary Mag-Xtract technology isolates magnets from recycled end-of-life products. The design capacity of the plant is 1,000 kg/hour (8,000 tonnes per year), and initial runs have processed several tonnes of magnet feedstock per day.

"The launch of our pilot plant is a major step forward for developing a domestic, circular supply chain for critical materials at the scale needed to support the clean energy transition and technological innovation," said Ahmad Ghahreman, co-founder and CEO of Cyclic Materials. "Our magnet-agnostic recycling technology produces one of the cleanest and highest quality mixed rare earth oxide products available on the global market—an environmentally sustainable, first-of-its-kind solution to the limited international supply of critical magnet materials."

In 2022, Cyclic Materials completed an initial proof-of-concept of Mag-Xtract, processing 4000 kg of magnet-containing products —including copper, aluminum and steel— from end-of-life products. These materials are critical to the development of electric vehicles, wind turbines, smartphones and other technologies.

In addition to developing Mag-Xtract, Cyclic Materials is scaling its proprietary hydrometallurgy technology to convert magnet feedstock and manufacturing waste into mixed rare earth oxide, cobalt-nickel hydroxide, and other by-products. Last fall, Cyclic Materials piloted its hydrometallurgy technology at a capacity of 10 tonnes/year. It is currently developing the first commercial demonstration plant for this technology in Kingston, ON, with a target launch date in Q2 2024.