To transform 4000 data centers, the United States will extract rare earths from used hard disks (6)

Why are the hard disk drives with an annual shipment of up to 259 million pieces being paid attention to by both the U.S. government and technology giants at the same time?

On the one hand, it stems from advantages. Carly Frost, a doctoral student who majors in industry sustainable development at Purdue University, said: “there are millions of hard disks in the data center. The companies that operate these data centers hope to process these data in the best way and promote the sustainability of these data centers. The United States alone produces nearly 17% of used hard drives, which accounts for the largest share in the world. A consortium of American researchers, technology companies, hardware manufacturers and e-waste recyclers has recently begun to explore how to reuse these rare earths and give them a second life. ”

On the other hand, it stems from disadvantages. As mentioned earlier, permanent magnets are an important component of hard disk drives, and the manufacturing process of permanent magnets requires a large amount of rare earths (the proportion of the downstream application of magnetic materials accounts for up to 25%). Hongyue Jin, a scientist at the University of Arizona who studies rare earth recycling, said: “The reason why hard disk recycling is important is that the permanent magnets in them mainly contain neodymium (Nd) and dysprosium (Dy), which are two rare earth elements. Among the 17 different rare earth elements, these two are quite essential for electric vehicles and wind turbines.”

Rare earth is called the “omnipotent earth”, which is indispensable for catalyst, glass, polishing, metallurgy, etc., and is has been listed as a strategic reserve resource in many countries.