The problem has been how to recover it. So it is not a simple matter to recycle. But it's too valuable to throw away, so there are literally warehouses full of 55-gallon drums of the stuff waiting to be recycled. However the complexity and expense of such a method was impractical for large-scale, commercial recycling. Building on research pioneered and patented by Ames Laboratory researchers Tim Ellis and Rick Schmidt in the mid-1990's, Chumbley focused on using molten magnesium to extract the neodymium from the magnet scrap.
Neodymium is soluble in liquid magnesium.
The recovery process is relatively simple. The liquid magnesium leaches the neodymium from the scrap particles. The resulting magnesium alloy is enriched in neodymium, making it perfect for use as feed material for the magnesium casting industry, at a substantially lower cost. Currently, a typical magnesium alloy casting contains only 2 percent neodymium by weight, yet the neodymium accounts for 40 percent of the raw materials cost. They wouldn't have to retool or change any of their processes.