metals

A federal lawmaker has introduced the "Intergovernmental Critical Minerals Task Force Act," seeking to diminish U.S. reliance on China for critical minerals via domestic mining, recycling and finding other trade partners. 

Electronics processors are increasingly adding solar panel recycling capacity, in some cases processing them similarly to declining streams like CRT glass and in other cases rolling out entirely new technologies, companies said in recent interviews.

As rare earth elements draw mainstream headlines for their entanglement in the U.S.-China trade war, recent announcements from an ITAD operator, an OEM and a magnet processor indicate the domestic end-of-life device stream is increasingly providing feedstock for rare earth end users.

The White House this week issued an executive order directing the Department of Commerce to explore the effects of critical mineral imports on national security. Among other points, it calls for the agency to explore policies boosting recycling of minerals like cobalt, nickel, aluminum and palladium, as well as the 17 rare earth elements.

North America's current capacity to process 144,000 tons per year of lithium-ion batteries is "quite insignificant" against the projected growth in new manufacturing, according to a recent overview of the global lithium-ion battery recycling landscape from consulting and research firm Deloitte and a division of the American Chemical Society.

A U.S. rare earth recycling technology firm recently announced it has expanded its capabilities to recycle magnets, including those sourced from end-of-life consumer electronics.

As trade strife between the U.S. and China heats up once again, the Chinese government has restricted exports of some key metals alongside retaliatory tariffs. Given China's position as the world's largest supplier of those metals, the move could spur more interest in U.S. recycling.

Samsung Electronics is working to take cobalt from old Galaxy batteries and incorporate it into new batteries. 

Rare earth element recycler REEcycle received a $5.1 million award from the U.S. Department of Defense to advance its work in extracting elements critical to neodymium-iron-boron magnets — the key building blocks of renewable energy and national defense technologies. 

The Department of Energy's aptly named E-SCRAP prize program has awarded funds to companies engaged in hard drive disassembly, rare earth magnet recovery, hydrometallurgy and e-plastics recycling. More companies are invited to apply this year.