Economical evaluation of recycling system for rare-earth magnets

In order to conduct the rare-earth magnets recycling, the process should make profit continuously. We have developed the method to estimate the recycling cost for compressors in air conditioners and for hard disk drives in the future. The recycling cost depends on the amount of collectable used products, which is, however, not clarified. So, at first weestimated the recovery amount and then evaluate the recycling cost. The result predicted that in Japan the recovery amount of compressors would be increasing (67 tons per year in 2012 to 140 tons in 2020), while that of hard disc drives would be decreasing (9 tons in 2012 to 8 tons in 2020). From the economical evaluation, it was revealed that the important factors to profit are magnet price for comporessors, recovery amount for hard disc drives and depreciation cost for both of products.