<p> Japan's Nissan Motor Co Ltd has developed a new technology to halve the cost of recycling rare earths used in magnet motors for electric vehicles (EVs), the company said on Friday.</p>.<p>With tension simmering between China and the United States, automakers are trying to reduce their reliance on a key driver of the EV revolution - permanent magnets that power electric engines, as most are made of rare earth metals from China.</p>.<p>Automakers are also concerned about huge price swings of the metals and environmental damage in the supply chain.</p>.<p>Nissan, collaborating with Katsunori Yamaguchi, a professor at Waseda University, established a new recycling technology to recover rare earth compounds in high purity and efficiency without dismantling the motor, which is the conventional way.</p>.<p>Permanent magnet motors - using rare earths such as neodymium and dysprosium - naturally have magnetic force. These are at the heart of many electric motors, powering the rotor of the drivetrain.</p>.<p>With the new technology in a dry refining method, Nissan melts the rotors in a furnace above 1,400 Celsius, extracts them as an oxide liquid, and then separates them to extract the rare earths.</p>.<p>The new method will shorten the processing time to about 4 hours from 8 hours now and halve the recycling cost, Kazuhiro Ogawa, senior manager at Nissan, told reporters.</p>.<p>Nissan will continue experimenting with larger scale facilities, with an aim to make the process commercially viable in the mid-2020s.</p>.<p>"Reducing the use of rare earths is a key challenge as the resources are unevenly distributed, prices fluctuate depending on supply-demand balance, and the mining and smelting process has an impact on ecosystems," Ogawa said.</p>.<p>Nissan, which has been cutting the use of heavy rare earths at the design stage and recycling them, will aim for zero dependence on newly extracted resources in future, he said.</p>
<p> Japan's Nissan Motor Co Ltd has developed a new technology to halve the cost of recycling rare earths used in magnet motors for electric vehicles (EVs), the company said on Friday.</p>.<p>With tension simmering between China and the United States, automakers are trying to reduce their reliance on a key driver of the EV revolution - permanent magnets that power electric engines, as most are made of rare earth metals from China.</p>.<p>Automakers are also concerned about huge price swings of the metals and environmental damage in the supply chain.</p>.<p>Nissan, collaborating with Katsunori Yamaguchi, a professor at Waseda University, established a new recycling technology to recover rare earth compounds in high purity and efficiency without dismantling the motor, which is the conventional way.</p>.<p>Permanent magnet motors - using rare earths such as neodymium and dysprosium - naturally have magnetic force. These are at the heart of many electric motors, powering the rotor of the drivetrain.</p>.<p>With the new technology in a dry refining method, Nissan melts the rotors in a furnace above 1,400 Celsius, extracts them as an oxide liquid, and then separates them to extract the rare earths.</p>.<p>The new method will shorten the processing time to about 4 hours from 8 hours now and halve the recycling cost, Kazuhiro Ogawa, senior manager at Nissan, told reporters.</p>.<p>Nissan will continue experimenting with larger scale facilities, with an aim to make the process commercially viable in the mid-2020s.</p>.<p>"Reducing the use of rare earths is a key challenge as the resources are unevenly distributed, prices fluctuate depending on supply-demand balance, and the mining and smelting process has an impact on ecosystems," Ogawa said.</p>.<p>Nissan, which has been cutting the use of heavy rare earths at the design stage and recycling them, will aim for zero dependence on newly extracted resources in future, he said.</p>