Mkango Resources Ltd (AIM:MKA, TSX-V:MKA, OTC:MKNGF) said subsidiary HyProMag has produced the first recycled rare earth magnets in the United Kingdom on commercial scale equipment for two decades.
Trial production runs at the Tyseley Energy Park hub in Birmingham have so far produced around 3,000 finished magnets.
Professor Allan Walton, head of the Magnetic Materials Group, University of Birmingham, and founding director of HyProMag said: "A huge amount of work has been carried out over the last year on the existing pilot plant at the University of Birmingham to produce a spectrum of NdFeB magnets with a range of magnetic grades.
“The installation of the new equipment at Tyseley Energy Park has allowed us to prove that these properties can be achieved on a commercial scale for the first time on automated equipment.
“This is a massive step forward and re-introduces commercial sintered magnet manufacturing back into the UK for the first time in over 20 years."
Full commercial production is now scheduled for mid-2024 at 20 tonnes a year (tpa) rare earth magnets and alloys, scaling up to a minimum of 100tpa in subsequent months.
Larger scale-up scenarios of up to 1,000tpa are currently being evaluated, said Mkango.
HyProMag, owned by Mkango's 79%-owned subsidiary Maginito, is planning further production runs in the coming weeks to provide samples in areas such as wind turbines and electric vehicles.
HyProMag is the exclusive licensee for the underlying HPMS technology, developed at the University of Birmingham, and as it preserves the quality of the original magnets for reprocessing is more efficient than other methods.
Nick Mann, HyProMag’s operations general manager said it was already seeing “strong market interest to begin delivering recycled magnets to customers at scale”.
Production will roll out to Germany next year and in the US in 2026 via a joint venture with CoTec Holdings.
Will Dawes, Mkango's chief executive, added: "This is a major milestone.
“HyProMag's recycling technology has major competitive advantages versus other recycling technologies and is a key enabler for the cost-effective and energy-efficient separation and recycling of rare earth magnets."