Final Meeting MaXycle, Goriška Brda, Slovenia, 20.-22.06.2021

AGENDA_final

The final MaXycle meeting was held in Slovenia, Goriška Brda, on 20.-22. June 2021 and was organized by the coordinator, Jožef Stefan Institute (Agenda). All partners were presented except for the supporting partner, the University of Birmingham. The members of the Swedish Environmental Research Institute, IVL, were connected online through Teams. The REIA Secretary-General, Dr. Nabeel Mancheri, participated online as the external advisor.

Magneti, MIMPlus, Hochschule Pforzheim, and Jožef Stefan Institute presented final results concerning new magnets’ production from recycled material. The results are very promising with all techniques applied; regular sintering, the SDS method, and SPS sintering. IVL presented the final results for the Life Cycle and Cost Cycle Assessment. The database of end of life magnets is completed. It gives a better picture that the collection, dismantling, sorting, recovering, enhancement, and production of EOL magnets is much more complicated and time-consuming than envisioned at the beginning of the project due to unregulated magnet production. Leonard Ansorge from the recycling company RockLink attended the meeting as an associate partner and presented his view on recycling “Rethinking Scrap Collection and Separation”. All partners were involved in the section “Brainstorming, Ideas for the future collaboration” and in the round table discussion on Green Energy: Quantifying environmental impacts in rare earth value chains. Prof. Dr. Jean-Marie Dubois evaluated the project outcome as an independent observer throughout the duration of the project. The assessment was highly enthusiastic.

Virtual 24-month meeting, 26th of October 2020

Due to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, we could not postpone the meeting anymore and held a virtual 24-month meeting over the internet on the 26th of October 2020, organized by MIMPlus. The project was prolonged for three months, as some of the work could not be completed due to limitations in each partner’s working environment.  Even due to the restrictions, a lot of the work has been done and presented inthe virtual meeting. Magneti, MIMPlus, Hochschule Pforzheim, and Jožef Stefan Institute presented new results concerning new magnets’ productionfrom recycled material. The results are very promising with all techniques applied; regular sintering, the SDS method, and SPS sintering. IVL also presented new results for the Life cycle and Cost cycle assessment. The database of end of life magnets is more and more complete. It already gives a better picture that the collection, dismantling, sorting, recovering, enhancement, and production of EOL magnets is much more complicated and time-consuming than envisioned at the beginning of the project due to unregulated magnet production. Leonard Ansorge from the recycling company Rocklink attended the meeting as an associate partner. The next meeting is planned for the beginning of next year, probably again as a virtual meeting.

Project meeting; Ljubljana, Slovenia, 14.- 15. November 2019

In Ljubljana, at the Magneti site, the mid-term meeting was held on the 14th and 15th of November. The project is successfully tackling the challenges that it is confronting. Partners showed first results developing of a future grading system for hard magnets, taking into account all the information needed for a successful recycling and the classification database for EOL magnets is getting its final form. It was also shown that not all coatings are suitable for recycling and a guideline has to be developed which coatings should be used in the future for easy recycling. Also first results of magnets produced from recycled magnetic powder have been shown. The next MaXycle meeting is scheduled on the 7th and 8th of May 2020 at MIMplus in Pforzheim.

Readable DMC code on a magnet

Project meeting; Göteborg, Sweden

The 12-month project meeting was held from 9.- 11. May 2019 in Göteborg, Sweden at the IVL Institute. The partners reported on the findings of the coating removal on EOL magnets. A system was presented for the classification of magnets for future recycling procedures and a life cycle assessment of the current production of magnets is in development for comparison with the new recycling method. Also future plans and tasks have been discussed. The next meeting is planned at the company Magneti in Ljubljana in November.

Project meeting; Pforzheim, Germany

On the 20th of November, the 6-month meeting of the MaXycle consortium took place in the Parkhotel in Pforzheim. All consortium partners were present and presented their work done in the last 6 months. All work packages follow the time schedule as planned. The next meeting, which will be the 12M meeting, will be held on the 9th and 10th of May 2019, in Göteborg Sweden.