A CMI technology for acid-free dissolution recycling is being used in a pilot project with CMI Team member Western Digital, Microsoft, CMI Team member TdVib subsidiary Critical Materials Recycling, and PedalPoint Recycling.
Digital storage firm Western Digital has launched an initiative in collaboration with Microsoft, Critical Materials Recycling, and PedalPoint Recycling to retrieve and recycle rare earth minerals from disused hard drives in data centers.
The Advanced Recycling and Rare Earth Material Capture Program has already recycled 50,000 pounds of shredded end-of-life hard disk drives (HDD), mounting caddies, and other materials into critical materials, including rare earth elements such as Neodymium, Praseodymium, and Dysprosium. The materials were collected from several Microsoft data centers across the United States.
The pilot program is pioneering an “eco-friendly non-acid process,” which, according to the companies, not only recaptures essential rare earth elements but also extracts metals like gold, copper, aluminum, and steel, which are subsequently fed back into the U.S. supply chain.
The acid-free dissolution recycling technology was developed at the Critical Materials Innovation Hub, located in the Ames National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Iowa.
See the full story: Western Digital, Microsoft launch initiative to recycle critical minerals from disused data center equipment