American Resources Corporation (NASDAQ:AREC) has announced the continued development of its supply chain for waste permanent magnets and lithium-ion batteries that can be recycled for their inherent critical and rare earth minerals.
The company said it has recently picked up its first waste wind turbine motors and generators to be processed and recycled using its environmentally safe ligand-assisted displacement (LAD) chromatography purification technology in conjunction with its sponsored research partnership with Purdue University.
CEO Mark Jensen noted that the US is “in the infancy of an electrification boom” with the growth of electric vehicles, wind turbines, and other high-heat-based electric motors or generators.
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“As we have been refining our suite of technologies for commercial-scale production, we have simultaneously been building a redundant and efficient supply chain network to be able to source waste permanent magnets and lithium-ion batteries to be broken down, recycled, isolated and purified for the reuse of domestically sourced rare earth and critical elements,” Jensen said in a statement.
“The goal of our team is to not only address a national security issue we are facing in our country, but also to be able to do it cost-effectively while using the most environmentally safe methods. These magnets and batteries today typically go to landfills and are wasted, never to be used again. We are focused on working with partners to source the feedstock prior to landfilling and use them to be the lowest cost and most sustainable feedstocks in the rare earth marketplace. With our purification technology, we can not only reduce the environmental footprint of filling up landfills, but also recycle the critical and rare earth material such as Praseodymium, Neodymium and Dysprosium, etc. in a very cost-effective and environmental stable method for future reuse.”
The company is aggressively advancing its Capture-Process-Purify process chain for critical and rare earth elements (REEs) to commercialization and to further develop its aftermarket distribution channels and strategic partnerships for certain waste products to be processed and recycled for their high-value raw materials.
Additionally, with President Biden's recently announced plan to increase the recycling of parts that require critical and REEs to function, such as batteries and permanent magnets, the company said it is focused on leading the development of an efficient supply chain for sustainability and a circular life cycle of these materials.
American Resources said that waste magnets make an incredibly efficient feedstock for the recycling of magnet REEs, including Neodymium, Praseodymium, Samarium, Terbium and Dysprosium.
The company said that it is estimated that about $3 billion worth of REEs end up in landfills annually given the disposal of end-of-life products. Thus, the recycling and reducing to the pure elements in permanent magnets and batteries from sources such as hard disk drives, electric vehicles, NMR machines, e-bikes and wind turbines significantly reduce waste that goes into landfills, reduces the mining-based environmental impact, and mitigates the supply chain risk.
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