Urban Mining Technology Assigned Patent
Magnet recycling to create Nd--Fe--B magnets with improved or restored magnetic performance
By Francis Pelletier | June 24, 2015 at 2:27 pmUrban Mining Technology Company, Perryville, MD, has been assigned a patent (9,044,834) developed by Zakotnik, Miha, Newark, DE, Afiuny, Peter, Dunn, Scott, Perryville, MD, and Tudor, Catalina Oana, Newark, DE, for a “magnet recycling to create Nd–Fe–B magnets with improved or restored magnetic performance.”
The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for recycling magnetic material to restore or improve the magnetic performance. One of the methods includes demagnetizing magnetic material from a waste magnet assembly by cyclic heating and cooling of the magnetic material, fragmenting adhesives attached to the magnetic material, cracking coating layers of the magnetic material, and subjecting the magnetic material to at least one of: a) a mechanical treatment or (b) a chemical treatment, to remove the coating layers and prepare the magnetic material without impurities, fragmenting the demagnetized magnetic material to form a powder, and mixing the powder with a rare earth material R and an elemental additive A to produce a homogeneous powder, wherein the rare earth material R comprises at least one of: Nd or Pr, and the elemental additive A comprises at least one of: Nd, Pr, Dy, Co, Cu, and Fe.“
The patent application was filed on June 17, 2014 (14/307,267).