Life Cycle Assessment of Bonded NdFeB Magnets for Production and Recycling

Research on the recycling of NdFeB magnets has received more and more attention, however, it is uncertain whether the recycling technology can really bring environmental benefits in the initial stage. The ReCiPe evaluation method was adopted, and producing 1 kg of bonded NdFeB magnets was selected as the functional unit to evaluate and compare the environmental impacts of the production and recycling processes of bonded NdFeB magnets, respectively. Results show that the environmental hot spot in the production process of bonded NdFeB magnets is in the smelting stage, and the environmental impact is mainly generated by neodymium and electricity. The environmental hot spots in the recycling process of bonded NdFeB magnets are in the organic removal stage and the hot-pressing curing stage, and the environmental impact is mainly generated by sodium hypochlorite and electricity. For the manufacture of 1kg bonded NdFeB magnets, the environmental damage to human health and ecosystem diversity, and resource depletion by the production process is 158.40%, 180.63%, and 63.37% of the recycling process, respectively.