Paladin rare earth recycling expansion: supply-chain takeaways for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Rare earth recycler Paladin EnviroTech is investing over US$5 million to expand its Ohio recovery facility from 40 to 150 tonnes per year by Q3 next year, targeting end-of-life hard drives, EV motors, generators, MRI machines and wind turbines containing neodymium, praseodymium, terbium and dysprosium (up to ~16% Dy in MRI magnets). Working with Western Digital and Critical Materials Recycling, Paladin uses a non-acidic selective leaching process achieving 97–98% rare earth recovery and about 90% total value recovery, feeding mixed rare earth oxides back into Western magnet supply chains.
Technical Brief
- Paladin runs six US facilities plus plants in the Netherlands and Ireland, with South Korea planned.
- Rare earth recovery capability will be replicated in Europe and Korea, implying multi-continent modular process deployment.
- MRI magnets in recovered equipment contain about 13–16% dysprosium, providing a relatively heavy-REE-rich feedstock.
- Partnership with Critical Materials Recycling uses Ames National Laboratory’s non-acidic selective leaching for magnet processing.
- Overall hard drive value recovery reaches ~90% once steel, PCBs and other metals are monetised alongside rare earths.
- Wind turbine decommissioning yields revenue from steel, copper, brass and reusable components before “zero-cost” magnet recovery.
- Paladin reports a 10–20% pricing spread by buying at China-linked benchmarks and selling into higher-priced Western markets.
Our Take
With rare earth recovery efficiencies reported at 97–98% and about 90% overall intrinsic value recovery from hard drives, Paladin EnviroTech’s Ohio operation positions recycling as a quasi-primary supply source in our rare earths coverage, rather than just a waste-management play.
The six US and two European facilities give Paladin a geographic footprint that, in our database, is unusual among rare earth recyclers and could make it a preferred partner for OEMs in the United States, Netherlands, Ireland and South Korea seeking non-Chinese neodymium–praseodymium and heavy rare earth units.
The 10–20% price spread between Chinese benchmarks and Western rare earth markets, combined with 3–5 year data-centre asset retirement cycles, suggests that steady scrap flows from Western Digital–type hardware could underpin a floor-load of dysprosium- and terbium-bearing feedstock even when mine projects are delayed.
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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