Daikin joins rare earth recycling scheme

JAPAN: Daikin has joined a collaboration to build Japan’s first circular scheme to recover and recycle rare earth magnets from the Japanese manufacturer’s commercial air conditioning compressors.

The co-operation involves Hitachi, which possesses resource recovery and recycling technologies through its subsidiary Tokyo Eco Recycle, and rare earth magnet manufacturer and recycler Shin-Etsu Chemical.

Daikin will collect compressors from its commercial air conditioners, and Tokyo Eco Recycle will be responsible for disassembling, demagnetising, and extracting the rare earth magnets. 

Based on technical information provided by Daikin, Tokyo Eco Recycle, together with Hitachi, will combine their established technology and know-how in recycling household compressors with AI image recognition technology and robots to improve the efficiency of the disassembly process. The environmental impact will be reduced by using resonance damping demagnetisation technology that does not directly generate CO2 . 

While demagnetisation has traditionally been carried out in electric furnaces, resonant damping demagnetisation involves applying an alternating magnetic field and gradually attenuating its amplitude.

Finally, Shin-Etsu Chemical will then manufacture new rare earth magnets using the extracted rare earth magnets as recycled material.

Full-scale operation is expected to commence from 2027.