By Axel Rose
So far, rare earths could not be recycled economically. But at the end of 2012, the world's first recycling plant went into operation in France. German companies are also looking for solutions to resource bottlenecks.
Is this the breakthrough in the recycling of rare earths? The French company Rhodia has commissioned the world's first reclaiming plant for rare earths in La Rochelle. So far rare earths could not be recovered unlike other raw materials yet. Instead, the high-tech metals, for example, from battery and battery wastes usually landed in the slag of blast furnaces and served as a building material for foundations and roads. Rhodia has now succeeded with a patented process, to which no more precise details have been made public, Rare earths from different types of waste. So far, it was only possible in a complex process to separate rare earths because their constituents are chemically very similar.
Rare earth stored
Matthias Wilke is likely to rub his hands over this success: “We are betting that the need for neodymium will be so great in the next few years that it is also attractive for an investor to put the necessary millions into the development of recycling processes “, The manager of the logistics company Geodis Logistics Germany recently explained. Around 400 kilograms of the raw material from the rare earth group, which is used for turbines, generators and motors, is stored at the company's location in Nieder-Olm. The neodymium is in the magnets of a total of 200.000 hard drivesthat Geodis has taken over from its customers for disposal.
Commodities attract companies and thieves
Copper is very popular with thieves: Recently, around 220 meter cables were stolen from a company site in Wilhelmshaven.
Although the mining of metals in mines will probably remain cheaper in the future than recycling, secondaryRaw materialsare becoming more and more a strategic business: "Schrotthändler is a job with a future," says Ralf Schmitz, Managing Director of the Association of German Metal Distributors eV Long ago, copper, brass and other metal scrap are no longer the old iron, but are in demand as never before. The growing interest is also reflected in rising theft numbers. Whether railway tracks or copper cable Telekom, hardly anything is more secure. The member companies of the Association of German Metalworkers are stealing metals worth 500.000 Euro per month.
Urban Mining has long since become a buzzword. The term refers to that Recycling those stocks included in infrastructure, structures and medium-longevity products. It is estimated that around 300 million tonnes of copper are already being used today. In Germany, more copper is produced from scrap than is obtained from ore, says Schmitz. In addition to copper, steel, nickel or zinc are also very popular.
Rare earths: dependence on China
The demand for metal scrap is growing steadily because resources are scarce and consumption is high. This is especially true for rare earths: While 2006 tons of rare earths were consumed worldwide in 107.500, the Australian mining company Lynas Corporation estimates consumption for 2011 at 136.100 tons. Experts expect a dramatic increase to 2020 tons by 240.000. An alarming forecast, because Germany is dependent on imports from China, which controls the market for rare earths - over 95 percent of the raw materials come from China. This dependency always leads to disputes, Just recently, Baotou Steel, the largest producer of rare earths in China, has extended its production stop announced two months ago by another month. Companies are therefore increasingly looking for alternatives. The steel company Thyssen Krupp wants to work with them Tantalus Rare Earthto develop one of the largest rare earth projects outside of China.
New recycling processes wanted
An electrically operated “Eco-Truck” picks up the valuable materials for recycling at the Audi automobile group.
But recycling is the more elegant way. The environment is spared and the Dependence on rising commodity prices diminished. So it's no wonder that recycling solutions are becoming increasingly popular. The medium-sized waste company Loser Chemie from Hainichen recently started up a pilot plant for the recycling of magnets that contain rare earths. But it still remains to be seen whether the process works in practice. A particular problem for recycling is that the number of magnets is very large, while the amount of individual metals per piece is very small - often in the milligram range. Under the umbrella of Fraunhofer Research, with the support of the federal states of Bavaria and Hesse, a new institute for recyclable material cycles and resource strategy is currently being developed, which will address these and other problems. The clock is ticking because the German economy is slowly running out of time, Until then, the hard disks containing the valuable raw materials at Geodis continue to be stored in their grid boxes in Nieder-Olm.
Source: http://www.marktundmittelstand.de/nachrichten/produktion-technologie/seltene-erden-durchbruch-beim-recycling/
