How to recycle the giant magnets inside wind turbines? These scientists have a few ideas.

Every year in the United States, hundreds to thousands of megawatts’ worth of wind turbines are repowered to enhance their electricity production capacity. Among the components that sometimes get replaced are magnets made with rare earth elements, which are also used in smartphones, laptops, and electric car motors. Despite the potential for recycling wind turbine magnets, less than 1% of rare earths are recycled globally. The U.S. government recently announced winners of a $5.1 million Wind Turbine Materials Recycling Prize to develop a cost-effective recycling industry for wind turbine components. The focus is on recycling components like wind turbine blades and the magnets inside generators. Teams are working on innovative recycling technologies, with plans to scale them up and advance towards commercialization. Efforts are underway to reduce the environmental impacts of mining and refining rare earth elements by recycling these materials from old technology. Teams are exploring cleaner and less energy-intensive recycling methods to extract neodymium and other rare earth metals from spent wind turbine magnets. The ultimate goal is to establish a domestic wind turbine magnet recycling industry to reclaim rare earths and reduce waste. Teams are currently working on phase-two submissions to demonstrate their technology prototypes and scale them up. The DOE expects to award additional prizes in late summer or early fall to advance the development of commercial rare-earth magnet recycling from wind turbines.