Ionic recycled rare earth EV motor magnets: supply chain lessons for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan

First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Ionic Rare Earths has led a UK–European collaboration with Less Common Metals, GKN and Ford UK to complete what it calls the Western world’s first end-to-end recycled rare earth supply chain for EV motor magnets, using “made-in-Belfast” long-loop recycling technology. Recycled neodymium, dysprosium and terbium oxides at >99.5% purity were converted by LCM into strip alloy, then into GKN magnets that passed Ford Dunton rotor durability tests with performance equivalent to production magnets. The Belfast commercial recycling plant will feed LCM alloy production for Ford’s UK EV facilities, directly supporting the UK Critical Minerals Strategy target of sourcing 20% of mineral needs from recycling by 2035.
Technical Brief
- Ionic’s Belfast facility is being developed as a commercial-scale rare earth magnet recycling plant for EV supply.
- Feedstock includes end-of-life magnets and secondary scrap from within existing magnet manufacturing supply chains.
- Ionic’s proprietary hydrometallurgical process yields individually separated Nd, Dy and Tb oxides at >99.5% purity.
- Less Common Metals converts these recycled oxides into rare earth metal and strip alloy to magnet specification.
- GKN fabricates magnets from LCM strip alloy to Ford’s dimensional and performance specifications for traction motors.
- Ford’s Dunton R&D centre subjects rotors with recycled-magnet assemblies to full durability test cycles for validation.
- The project is one of 36 circular rare earth initiatives funded under the UK government’s CLIMATES programme.
- UK Critical Minerals Strategy targets by 2035 are 10% domestic mineral production and 20% from recycling, up from 6% domestic today.
Our Take
Less Common Metals’ role in both this Ionic-led UK recycling chain and USA Rare Earth’s yttrium and CHIPS-backed projects positions the Cheshire–Belfast corridor as one of the few Western rare earth processing clusters with multi-customer, multi-commodity capability.
The UK’s 20% recycling target for critical minerals by 2035 implicitly favours processes like Ionic Technologies’ Belfast-based plant that can deliver >99.5% purity oxides, as these grades are already aligned with magnet-makers’ specifications and reduce the need for additional refining steps.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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