Automotive News Canada - October 2024 - 6

6
* OCTOBER 2024
Magnets are a coming
attraction in recycling
Recycling rare earth magnets has just a fraction of
the environmental impact of mining virgin material,
said Ahmad Ghahreman, CEO of Cyclic Materials Inc.
Despite this, only about one per cent of magnets are
recycled, he said. PHOTO: CYCLIC MATERIALS INC.
It's rare to process
rare earth materials
from old motors, but
it's a 'no-brainer'
says Toronto startup
By DAVID KENNEDY
T ORONTO BUREAU CHIEF
ELECTRIC VEHICLES CONTAIN
as little as two kilograms of magnetic
material made from rare
earth elements, most of which
go into the motors. Without this
small quantity of precious metals,
performance would suffer and
sticker prices would rise.
Magnetic material is " like vitamins
in our body. We don't need
a lot of it, but without those, we
cannot function, " said Ahmad
Ghahreman, CEO of Cyclic
Materials Inc.
The Toronto startup is scaling
up technology to recycle the
valuable materials, with growing
sales of EVs pushing demand for
rare earth elements. Cyclic's twostage
process would reduce the
need to mine new materials while
helping North America carve out
a role in a supply chain dominated
by China.
" Rare earth elements today
are about [a] $20-billion market,
but they unlock trillion-dollar
businesses around the world, "
Ghahreman said.
The typical EV contains two
to five kilograms of rare earth
magnets, adding $500 to $1,000
to the vehicle's bill of materials,
Ghahreman said.
" It's not the highest-cost material
in the manufacturing of a
car, " he said, " but it's not insignificant,
either. "
Rare earth elements - neodymium
foremost among them
- enable production of compact
motors that generate high torque.
Research and testing are under
way on a variety of next-generation
motors that don't need rare earths,
but the precious metals remain key
components of most EVs.
Dropping the rare earths would
mean less-efficient motors, requiring
automakers to outfit EVs with
larger, costlier batteries to maintain
the same amount of range,
Ghahreman said.
SCURRY TO SCALE UP
Given the rapid rise of electric
vehicles as well as increased trade
tension between the West and China,
Cyclic is working to bring its recycling
technology to market as quickly
as possible.
From humble beginnings as a
two-person operation carrying out
lab tests on a " really small " scale
in 2021, Cyclic employs about 40 at
operations in Toronto and nearby
Kingston. An additional 35 researchers
from company partners are working
with the in-house team full time.
In December 2023, the company
opened a pilot-scale recycling plant
in Kingston that could process 8,000
tonnes per year of end-of-life products
that contain magnets, splitting
them into streams for rare earths and
materials such as copper, aluminum
and steel.
In June, Cyclic launched a pilot
plant capable of processing the magnetic
material from the recycling
facility. The site, also in Kingston,
uses a hydrometallurgical chemical
process to extract and isolate metals,
yielding rare earth oxides and
other components such as nickel
and cobalt. It can produce about 100
tonnes of magnetic material a year.
Both plants are steppingstones on
Cyclic's full-scale production road
map.
The company plans to up its
processing capacity in Canada,
Ghahreman said, and has begun
investigating potential sites for global
expansion.
MAGNET MOTIVATION
Cyclic is among the early movers
on rare earth-magnet recycling,
which has little place to go but up.
Compared with the mature recycling
industry for materials such as aluminum
and copper - with significant
reuse of the metals - only about
one per cent of magnets are recycled
today, Ghahreman said. This is
despite the environmental impact
of recycling rare earths being just a
fraction of mining virgin material, he
added.
The company was primarily motivated
to solve this environmental
problem, Ghahreman said, but the
scale-up is being aided by wider economic
and geopolitical forces.
" It's a no-brainer from an environmental
perspective. It's a no-brainer
from the development and economic
and supply-chain-security side as
well, " Ghahreman said.
On Sept. 25, Cyclic raised US
$54 million (Cdn $71 million) in
a Series B funding round led by
ArcTern Ventures of Toronto. BMW
i Ventures, a unit of the automaker
that invests in startups, participated,
as did Microsoft through its Climate
Innovation Fund.
Along with EV motors, hard disk
drives used in data centres rely on
rare earth magnets. Demand in the
sector is rising rapidly, as Microsoft
and other players see growth in cloud
computing.
So far, Cyclic has remained largely
mum on direct partnerships with
automakers but it did disclose a
deal signed in 2022 with EV maker
Polestar. The companies are working
to create a circular supply chain
for rare earth elements used in the
brand's EVs.
Ghahreman would not comment
on Cyclic's other automotive prospects
but said the company is in contact
with most automakers based outside
China as it expands to commercial-scale
recycling plants. The next
two years, he said, are poised to be
" significant inflection points " for the
company. -ANC
Rare earth elements today
are about [a] $20-billion market,
but they unlock trillion-dollar
businesses around the world. "
Ahmad Ghahreman
CEO, Cyclic Materials Inc.
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ONGOING WEB COVERAGE
FUSMCA RENEGOTIATION
rom now until the July 1, 2026, deadline, representatives from Canada,
Mexico and the United States will meet to review the USMCA trade
agreement. The auto industry could be in for a roller-coaster ride,
especially if the political landscape changes after federal elections
in Canada and the United States.
U.S. dealers haSTELLANTIS STRUGGLESve raised concerns amid slumping sales about CEO
Carlos Tavares. Meanwhile, the automaker plans to build its Dodge
Durango replacement in Canada, roiling the United Auto Workers union.
SASKATCHEWAN VOWS TO COMPETE WITH CHINA
GLOBAL PRODUCTION AND SUPPLY OF RARE EARTH
metals needed for electric vehicles is 95 controlled by China, but
Saskatchewan says it can become the first North American alternative.
The province is known for copper, potash and uranium mines.
The Saskatchewan Research Council Rare Earth Processing facility
began production on a commercial scale and expects to hit a target
of 40 tonnes of rare earth metals per month by the end of 2024.
The facility has already tied up with potential clients in South Korea,
Japan and the United States.
AI POWERS AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
MAGNA INTERNATIONAL INC. IS PITCHING AUTOMAKERS ON
a new thermal-sensing product that processes
information with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
The supplier says its system reduces
the number of unexpected automatic emergency
activations. Pedestrians, animals, cyclists
and vehicles are marked on the images, which
Magna's algorithm is trained to recognize more
accurately than today's standard systems. " By
adding this thermal camera to that sensor
suite, it gives the system more information to
PHOTO: MAGNA
make intelligent decisions without going into an automatic emergency
braking situation, " said Magna.
OTTAWA CONSIDERS BAN ON CHINA SOFTWARE
CANADA'S AUTO INDUSTRY IS CALLING ON
the federal government to follow the United States
in a push to ban China software and hardware
used in connected vehicles. Citing national security
concerns, the U.S. Commerce Department
on Sept. 23 proposed prohibiting key components
in a move that, if passed, would effectively
bar China-built vehicles. The Canadian
Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, which represents
the Detroit Three, and the Automotive
Parts Manufacturers' Association want the same
BMW BETS ON HYDROGEN TECHNOLOGY
THE AUTOMAKER HAS COMMITTED TO BUILDING A SERIES
production hydrogen fuel cell vehicle despite the lack of fueling
infrastructure and the mass development of battery-electric vehicles.
BMW said Sept. 5 that it would launch the hydrogen vehicle
in 2028, working with Toyota to develop a " next-generation " powertrain
using its fuel cells. BMW has not said which vehicle will get
the technology, but it has been testing fuel cell iX5 crossovers in 20
countries and producing the model on a limited basis.
COMMERCIAL AIR MOBILITY CLOSER TO LIFTOFF
TOYOTA MOTOR CORP. WILL INVEST AN ADDITIONAL US $500
million (Cdn $670 million) into electric air-mobility startup Joby
Aviation, the companies said Oct. 2. Funding will support Joby's
ongoing efforts to certify its electric vertical takeoff-and-landing aircraft
and accelerate collaboration between the two companies on
commercial-scale manufacturing. Toyota's total investment in Joby
is US $894 million ($1.2 billion). - ANC
Freeland
FILE PHOTO
in Canada. Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia
Freeland said Canada is " absolutely " considering a similar ban.
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Automotive News Canada - October 2024

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