There is a good piece in this month's Physics World about the recycling of rare-earth magnets, citing their roles in wind turbines and electric car batteries. It states that 259 million hard disk drives for computers were shipped in 2021. They tend to go to the tip every few years as a new computer is needed. I have extracted several of the magnets to play with. Previously long-loop recycling was used and the whole thing was broken down, the rare earths being recovered as oxides. Energy is then needed to convert the oxides back into metals before casting alloys, reducing this to powder and then turning the powder into metals. Under a new short-loop process the rare-earth alloys break apart to form a powder after treatment with hydrogen. Much less energy is needed so if it scales up well, this process is probably the future!
