Ionic Technologies on track to become magnet rare earth producer

Ionic Rare Earths has advised on progress at Ionic Technologies International's Belfast facility in the United Kingdom, and the development of a Magnet Recycling Demonstration Plant to scale up the technology.

Ionic Technologies is a 100% owned subsidiary based in Belfast UK, which the Company acquired in H1 2022. IonicTech has developed rare earth element separation and refining technology and applied this to the recycling of spent permanent Neodymium-Iron-Boron (NdFeB) magnets.

The process uses a hydrometallurgical process to extract the rare earth elements (REE), then separate the individual magnet REEs within – Neodymium (Nd), Praseodymium (Pr), Dysprosium (Dy) and Terbium (Tb) – and finally refine to high purity individual magnet rare earths oxides (REO).

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In September 2022, Ionic Technologies was awarded a grant of £1.72 million from the UK Government's Innovate UK Automotive Transformation Fund Scale-up Readiness Validation (SuRV) program, to develop a demonstration scale magnet recycling plant, a significant step towards securing the UK supply of critical rare earth metals for EV manufacture.

The magnet recycling Demonstration Plant represents a scale up of the successful pilot plant campaigns completed to date and will provide further data for the development of a commercial facility(s).

Over the past six weeks, the Demonstration Plant equipment have been sequentially dry commissioned (94% complete) with safety systems installed prior to process commissioning activities which are now tracking at 66% complete.

As part of process commissioning, several intermediate products and streams have been prepared to enable the overall circuit to progress on schedule with the target of producing first separated high purity Rare Earth Oxides (REOs) by the end of this month.

IonicTech continues to build upon its inventory of feedstock Demonstration Plant trials, which has now increased to more than 50 tonnes of NdFeB permanent magnets and swarf material.

The variable magnet REE content within the feed stock materials, with fluctuating compositions of magnet REEs, Nd, Pr, Dy and Tb, along with other REE detected in the magnets after analysis, will provide IonicTech with a solid foundation to demonstrate the technology's attributes.

Unlike many other recycling technologies, the Ionic Technologies magnet recycling process is agnostic on magnet quality, can process oxidised magnets and can manage coatings and films, to produce individually separated and refined high purity REOs, which is providing significant interest to potential downstream users.

Over the past six-weeks, IonicTech has continued to implement safety systems and protections ahead of commissioning and operation activities.

IonicRE’s Managing Director Tim Harrison commented on progress at Ionic Technologies:

"The progress at IonicTech continues to plan with process commissioning on track to achieve the production of first separated oxides by the end of this month in Belfast.

"The successful commissioning and production of recycled high purity individual magnet REOs from our Magnet Recycling Demonstration Plant in Belfast facility will be a key catalyst for the Company in being able to establish further collaboration platforms and supply chain partnerships with magnet manufactures and end user customers."

"Additionally, the successful commissioning and production of magnet REOs will be an important milestone for several discussions progressing to deploy the modular technology across western markets looking to develop domestic, secure, and sustainable supply chains from secondary sources through recycling."