July/August 2020

n TECHNOLOGY July/August 2020 www.drivesncontrols.com 18 AGROUPOF UK companies, including Bentley Motors and the electric motor developer Advanced Electric Machines Research, have embarked on a £2.6mproject to develop technologies for recovering rare-earth materials from old equipment and recycle them for use in new electric motors. The RaRE (Rare-earth Recycling for E-machines) project has secured £1.9m of funding from the government-backed Innovate UK. The project is being led by Birmingham-based HyProMag which has a licence for a patented process for extracting neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) rare- earth alloy powders frommagnets embedded in scrap and redundant equipment. The process, called HPMS (Hydrogen Processing of Magnet Scrap), was originally developed by the University of Birmingham’s Magnetic Materials Group. The project aims, for the first time, to establish an end- to-end supply chain to incorporate recycled rare-earth magnets into ancillary motors, especially for use in electric vehicles. As well as HyProMag, the project members are: n the motor designer Advanced ElectricMachines Research (AEMR) , whose customers include Airbus and Tevva Motors; n the luxury car-maker, BentleyMotors , part of the VWgroup; n the electronics waste processor, Intelligent Lifecycle Solutions (ILS) ; and n the automotive supplier, Unipart Powertrain Applications . HyProMag plans to scale up the HPMS process and convert the rare-earthmaterials back into newmagnetic materials at pilot scale to demonstrate the quality of the materials, in terms of their magnetic behaviour, mechanical performance and corrosion resistance. ILS will establish the scrap-sorting process to maximise its efficiency and the volumes of the rare-earthmaterials produced. The recycledmagnets will be incorporated in an ancillary electric motor designed with recycling inmind by AEMR to a Bentley specification. A key aim is to reduce the complexity of electrical systems in electric vehicles. It is thought that this will be the first time that such a motor containing recycled rare-earths will have been produced. Unipart will design of a flexible assembly line that could produce 100,000 of the motors every year. UK project aims to recycle rare-earths from scrap to use in new motors “RaRE is an exciting project and a fantastic opportunity to prove the importance and worth of short-loop recycledmagnetic material,”says Nick Mann, HyProMag’s operations general manager.“NdFeB magnets are essential for many future technologies, and the emerging electric vehicle market is of increasing importance. HyProMag, founded in 2018, plans to establish a recycling facility at Tyseley in Birmingham that will provide a sustainable supply of NdFeB magnets and alloy powders. As well as the sintered NdFeB magnets for the proposed automotive applications, HyProMag is evaluating several other options including hydrogen- decrepitated (HD) demagnetised powders suitable for magnet producers, alloy ingots re-melted fromHD powders for alloy feeds or magnets, and anisotropic alloy powders for bondedmagnets. The £700,000 balance of the project costs (after Innovate UK’s £1.9m contribution) is being split between the project partners. HyProMag’s contribution will be funded by a £300,000 investment in the company made in January 2020 by Maginito , which gave it a 25% stake in the business. Maginito is a subsidiary of a Canadian business, Mkango Resources , which explores for rare-earth elements and associated minerals in the African state of Malawi. “We are very excited about this innovative project and the opportunity to scale up and commercialise the HPMS technology,”says Mkango’s CEO, William Dawes.“We envisage that recycling of rare- earthmagnets will play a key role in the development of robust supply chains to catalyse and support growth in the electric vehicle sector and in other clean technologies.” Rare-earthmaterials are widely used to create powerful permanent magnets for electric motors and other applications. Electric and hybrid vehicles can contain hundreds of these magnets, with a 100kW peak power permanent magnet traction motor alone typically contains about 1.2kg of rare-earthmagnets. Although there is considerable attraction in being able to recycle rare-earths, this does not happenmuch at present because of technical difficulties in separating magnets fromwaste. Rare-earthmaterials: the newUK process could recover them fromold equipment to createmagnets for new electric motors EIGHT CONNECTOR manufacturers have joined forces to establish a standardised push-pull locking mechanism for M12 round connectors. The IEC 61076-2-010 standard describes both external and internal systems using push-pull locking, and is intended to ensure compatibility between connectors from different manufacturers. The eight manufacturers – Phoenix Contact, Harting, Molex, Murrelektronik, Binder, Conec, Escha and Weidmüller – say that the new connectors will cut installation times and costs, as well as leading to a safe, robust and widely available locking system. The CDV (committee draft for vote) document was approved with a 92.9% vote in favour of the accepting it as an IEC standard. The final form of the standard is expected to be published in December 2020. n IEC approves push-pull standard for M12 connectors

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