The SICAPERMA project aims to accelerate Europe’s transition toward a resilient and circular supply chain for permanent magnets by developing and industrializing advanced recycling technologies. By recovering Nd-Fe-B magnets from end-of-life devices and transforming them into high-performance sintered and bonded magnets, the project reduces Europe’s dependency on strategic imports. SICAPERMA enables the creation of a full pan-European value chain, linking dismantling, recycled magnet production, and industrial integration. Its pilots will demonstrate the economic and technical viability of recycled magnets for a variety of strategic applications.
In 2022, only around 1% of NdFeB magnets was recycled. In this context, the implementation of an effective collection system for permanent magnets from end-of-life products appears to be an essential step and a great challenge. In the first year of the project, SICAPERMA focussed on magnet recovery from two main applications: hard disk drive (HDD) and small appliances electrical or electronics tools.
With five years of experience in collecting permanent magnet (PM) waste and valorising NdFeB magnets into new sintered magnets, MagREEsource was able to collect during the first year of the project nearly 200kg of TV loudspeaker. This end-of-life magnet deposit shows high variability in terms of packaging, brand and magnet categories available. That is why different steps of sorting were necessary. the ferrite magnets had to be separated from the rest of the flux. To do so, a destructive dismantling step was necessary to extract the magnets from plastic and metal parts. Miniaturisation has led to minimise the size of the magnet in loudspeakers. So, Ferrite magnets are now often replaced by NdFeB magnets. At the end of the sorting steps, the 200kg of TV loudspeakers gave approximately 5 kg of NdFeB magnets.
Pictures from loudspeaker waste to permanent magnet
In order to process these end-of-life magnets using the short loop Hydrogen process patented by MagREEsource it is necessary to characterize this feedstock. Due to the consistency of magnet properties during this recycling process, MagREEsource put a great focus on the qualification of the feedstock material. The quality of the input material is a valuable asset that is key for the recycling process. As a consequence, MagREEsource uses its fully equipped characterisation laboratory in order to check for the chemical composition, impurities content and magnetic properties.
The magnetic properties of magnets extracted from the loudspeaker batch have been measured by pulsed field magnetometer. The magnet grade of N35 is the predominant grade. X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis (XRF) has been used on a powder mix to evaluate the average composition of these magnets. These magnets do not contain heavy rare earth elements such as Dy or Tb. Finally, PM oxygen rate has been measured thanks to Instrumental Gaz Analysis (IGA) to complete the full characterization report.
| Sample | Loudspeaker-sample 01 | Loudspeaker-sample 02 | Loudspeaker-sample 03 |
| Br (T) | 1,21 | 1,19 | 1,22 |
| HcJ (kA/m) | 970 | 1112 | 1069 |
| (BH)max (kJ/m3) | 267 | 263 | 278 |
| Grade | N35 | N35 | N35 |
Example of loudspeaker magnetic properties
This work was also done on End-of life HDD material. MagREEsource collected 70kg of HDD magnets from different supplier with different dismantling level during the first year of SICAPERMA.
Pictures from HDD waste to permanent magnet
(a) HDD before dismantling and sorting ( (b) HDD NdFeB magnet
HDD magnets have been characterized by XRF for the chemical composition and by Pulsed field magnetometer for the magnetic properties.
Examples of the variety of NdFeB magnets from HDD
The magnet grade varies between N35 and N42M on the whole analysed magnet batch. This study shows, a high diversity of magnets in terms of size and geometry. This is linked to the difference in HDD generations, various suppliers and HDD sizes (2.5 vs 3.5’’). Consequently, the HDD magnet properties and chemical composition are very inhomogeneous within the same batch.
| Sample | HDD-sample 01 | HDD-sample 02 | HDD-sample 03 | HDD-sample 03 |
| Br (T) | 1,250 | 1,306 | 1,226 | 1,302 |
| HcJ (kA/m) | 808 | 1017 | 1273 | 1307 |
| (BH)max (kJ/m3) | 268 | 325 | 283 | 309 |
| Grade | N38 | N42 | N35M | N42M |
Example of HDD magnetic properties
Part of these batches has been dispatched to SICAPERMA partners (IMDEA Nanosciences, Metalpine, Institute of Physics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences) in January 2025 to complete characterization, or to prepare new NdFeB material using their own innovative processes (gas atomization or melt spinning). The remaining part will be used by MagREEsource to produce NdFeB powder for bonded magnets manufacturers (IMA and Kolektor), for hot formed magnet producers (National Institute for Materials Physics) or for its own sintered magnets production. In all cases, these various pilots aim to produce 100% recycled magnets, thus enabling the implementation of the first stage of the European recycled magnet value chain.
Ultimately, the project will strengthen European sovereignty, support regional growth, and contribute to environmental sustainability through a competitive circular industry.