Promoting a Circular Economy through the Recycling of Rare Elements.
Ahmad Gharehman is the CEO & Co-Founder of Cyclic of Materials, he has more than 15 years of experience in developing cleantech technologies, focused on the processing and recycling of resources, his passion for building a sustainable environment allows him to lead Cyclic Materials on its vision to reshape the rare elements market.
A Crucial Point: What Rare Earth Elements Are?
Not the most popular guys on the block, or more precisely in the periodic table, rare elements are 17, commonly displayed at the bottom. We might not even heard of them at school, but these elements are the foundation of the strongest magnets. Why do we care about that? Well, the logic is simple, magnets play a key role in the development of motors, the strongest is a magnet, the more efficient is the motor.
These magnets are also known as reverse magnets and you'll find them as part of electric cars or common daily objects like a pair of headsets.
How did Cyclic Materials come to be?
Cyclic Materials was founded in October 2021 in a very specific context, a rising demand for electric vehicles across North America, Europe, and Asia combined with a staggering fact. Just 1% of rare elements were recycled. This meant that to obtain new metals mining was the only option, with all the environmental risks that mining activities signify. The supply chain was also a problem, given that rare elements were mined from a single location. To face that challenge, Cyclic Materials decided to focus its attention on finding ways of recycling magnets from end-of-life products to produce raw materials needed for brand-new magnets. A circular process indeed.
At the moment 100% of rare elements come from mining only, from a single location. There's 0% recycling
The Power of a Holistic Vision
Although there are companies out there in the market that pursue a similar goal to what Cyclic Materials does, Ahmad Grarehman says that what makes his company stand out is the way he and his team see the way the problem needs to be solved. Instead of working with only one sort of permanent magnet, Cyclic Materials dedicates itself to recycling all four types of magnets: neodymium iron boron (NdFeB), samarium cobalt (SmCo), alnico, and ceramic or ferrite magnets.
It has to be a Collaborative Effort.
One of the main setbacks and yet at the same one of the main lessons for the recycling industry is that a company might have a great product and wonderful projects to solve our current climate crisis but what makes the idea work is having people to give their non-longer desired or useful objects so they can be recycled and not wasted. Cyclic Materials tackles this by actively communicating with as many people as possible, delivering the message of how beneficial for the environment is recycling. Education is key to achieving this. Businesses and people in general need to know how a single step, like putting products they no longer use into recycling can positively affect our planet.
A Mission for The Future
At the moment, the sourcing of rare elements, relies heavily on mining, if we were to say a percentage, it’d be 100% on mining and an unfortunate 0% on recycling, given that the demand for electric vehicles and batteries is going to keep growing at exponential rates, there’s a sense of urgency to shift the game to more climate-friendly solutions. And it’s not only for the planet, Grarehman calculates that in a matter of 10 or 15 years, our need for these metals is going to increase to 3 or 5 fold the current level, if the source is only one country, there’s no way the supply chain can resist that without breaking at some point. Recycling definitely must be part of our journey towards the future.
