Penn Researcher Develop Simple, Cost-Effective Way to Recycle Rare-Earth Magnets

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found an efficient and cost-effective way to recycle two rare-earth metals that comprise the tiny, powerful magnets often found in high-tech consumer electronics. Mining and purifying the metals is ecologically devastating, labor-intensive, and expensive. The method developed by Assistant Professor of Chemistry Eric J. Schelter and and graduate student Justin Bogart uses standard laboratory equipment and works works nearly instantaneously at room temperature. Connor A. Lippincott, an undergraduate student in the Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research, and Patrick J. Carroll, director of the University of Pennsylvania X-Ray Crystallography Facility, also contributed to the study, which was published in Angewandte Chemie, International Edition.

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