a b s t r a c t
The recycling of Nd–Fe–B-type sintered magnets has received a great deal of attention over
the past 15 years, but commercially viable and environmentally friendly solutions have
remained elusive, until now. Here we report on the recycling of waste magnets using a
novel ‘‘magnet-to-magnet’’ approach and show that it can work on a commercial scale.
As part of the study, we have evaluated material supply, energy consumption, and the
overall environmental and economic benefits of magnet-to-magnet recycling, compared tothe traditional manufacturing of ‘‘virgin’’ magnets. We also demonstrate how the magnetto-magnet
recycling approach can reduce energy consumption by more than 45%, during
magnet production, with overall savings exceeding 90% when we also consider rawmaterials
production.