{"id":249756,"date":"2025-04-23T17:08:55","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T21:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/noticias\/companies-promote-advanced-recycling-of-rare-earth-elements-from-hard-drives\/"},"modified":"2025-04-23T18:23:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T22:23:24","slug":"companies-promote-advanced-recycling-of-rare-earth-elements-from-hard-drives","status":"publish","type":"noticias","link":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/news\/companies-promote-advanced-recycling-of-rare-earth-elements-from-hard-drives\/","title":{"rendered":"Companies promote advanced recycling of rare earth elements from hard drives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Western Digital has taken a decisive step forward with an ambitious program to recover critical components from end-of-life hard drives. This project, carried out in collaboration with Microsoft, Critical Materials Recycling (CMR), and PedalPoint Recycling, has achieved unprecedented levels of recovery using an innovative acid-free technique. <\/p>\n\n

Process for extracting rare earths from hard drives<\/h2>\n\n

The process begins with the collection of discarded storage drives from US data centers<\/a><\/strong> . These drives are shredded and sorted by PedalPoint, which separates magnets, cases, and metal components. CMR then applies the ADR (Acid-free Dissolution Recycling) recycling method, extracting neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium oxides with an efficiency exceeding 90%. <\/p>\n\n

\"hard
Rare earth extraction process. Source: Western Digital <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

The initiative, in addition to significantly reducing the carbon footprint (95% less than traditional mining), represents a structural change in the way we manage electronic waste. With this model, the US strengthens its autonomy over the supply of strategic minerals, a key step in the face of trade tensions with supplier countries like China. <\/p>\n\n

The pilot program<\/a><\/strong> has become an example applicable to other industries, such as automotive and renewable energy. The extracted rare earths can fuel the manufacture of electric vehicle engines or wind turbines, promoting a robust, multi-sector circular economy. <\/p>\n\n

Towards a truly circular supply chain<\/h2>\n\n

Western Digital is committed to deeper integration of customers and technology partners into the advanced recycling ecosystem. The goal is to consolidate a closed loop that reduces hardware waste and maximizes the recovery of valuable resources, setting a new global standard for the data storage industry. <\/p>\n\n

As the company’s director of product sustainability, Rhownica Birch, put it, this breakthrough “builds a replicable model that can take circularity beyond the technological environment.” A model that is ready to be adopted by those who believe that sustainability and innovation can go hand in hand. <\/p>\n\n

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Source and internal photo :<\/a> Western<\/a> Digital<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Main photo: shutterstock<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The process developed by Western Digital and its partners allows for the recovery of up to 90% of rare earths from hard drives using an acid-free technique.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8403,"featured_media":249735,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categoria_noticias":[13034,13078],"etiqueta_noticias":[],"class_list":["post-249756","noticias","type-noticias","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categoria_noticias-curiosities","categoria_noticias-innovation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias\/249756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/noticias"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias\/249756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"categoria_noticias","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categoria_noticias?post=249756"},{"taxonomy":"etiqueta_noticias","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/etiqueta_noticias?post=249756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}