TY - JOUR
T1 - Environmental impacts of a circular recovery process for hard disk drive rare earth magnets
AU - Frost, Kali
AU - Sousa, Ines
AU - Larson, Joanne
AU - Jin, Hongyue
AU - Hua, Inez
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article. Kali Frost declares that she received a stipend for equipment and for travel to the study site from Google, a company which may be affected by the research reported in the article. Ines Sousa and Joanne Larson are employed by Google and Seagate, respectively, which are companies that may be affected by the research reported in the article. Hongyue Jin declares that she has no conflict of interest. Inez Hua declares receipt of a research grant from Google, a company which may be affected by the research reported in the article.
Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the support of the Purdue Doctoral Fellowship and Google for their generous funding of this work. The authors would like to thank Wade Fott, Jonathan Jones, Richard Nguyen, and Balan Shanmuganathan from Seagate and Yara Barkopolous, Ryan Brodie, Chris Donaghue, Ikenna Ike, Matt Opper, Chad Ray, Peter Sarossy, Leann Speta, Devon Swezey, Kaushal Upadhyaya, and Toby Xu from Google for their contributions to this project.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
PY - 2021/10
Y1 - 2021/10
N2 - Hard disk drives (HDDs) are prioritized by many stakeholders for implementation of circular economy initiatives due to their value and critical material content. Rare earth (RE) magnets are of particular interest for recovery and reuse (R&R), but the business model has not been demonstrated for feasibility at a large scale. This study assessed a pilot-scale R&R process for RE magnet assemblies and compared the environmental impacts with business as usual (BAU) (i.e. shredding whole HDDs at end-of-life), using life cycle assessment (LCA). The process was implemented by two major stakeholders in the HDD value chain – a large HDD user (i.e., data center) and a HDD manufacturer. Primary data on materials, transportation, and electricity inputs were collected from dismantling 6100 end-of-life HDDs in a data center, transporting the retrieved RE magnet assemblies to a HDD manufacturer, and placing them in new HDDs for reuse. LCA results indicated an 86% reduction in global warming potential: 3.70 kg CO2-eq per set of magnet assemblies from one HDD compared to the BAU system. The environmental benefit was predominantly due to foregoing the RE magnet production, which is the most energy and chemically intensive process within the magnet assembly. This pilot also highlighted the benefits of a collocated R&R process with data centers to address (1) data security concerns, (2) transboundary shipments of e-waste (whole HDDs vs. components), and (3) the need for a qualified manufacturing process for disassembly, which is required to reuse components in new HDDs.
AB - Hard disk drives (HDDs) are prioritized by many stakeholders for implementation of circular economy initiatives due to their value and critical material content. Rare earth (RE) magnets are of particular interest for recovery and reuse (R&R), but the business model has not been demonstrated for feasibility at a large scale. This study assessed a pilot-scale R&R process for RE magnet assemblies and compared the environmental impacts with business as usual (BAU) (i.e. shredding whole HDDs at end-of-life), using life cycle assessment (LCA). The process was implemented by two major stakeholders in the HDD value chain – a large HDD user (i.e., data center) and a HDD manufacturer. Primary data on materials, transportation, and electricity inputs were collected from dismantling 6100 end-of-life HDDs in a data center, transporting the retrieved RE magnet assemblies to a HDD manufacturer, and placing them in new HDDs for reuse. LCA results indicated an 86% reduction in global warming potential: 3.70 kg CO2-eq per set of magnet assemblies from one HDD compared to the BAU system. The environmental benefit was predominantly due to foregoing the RE magnet production, which is the most energy and chemically intensive process within the magnet assembly. This pilot also highlighted the benefits of a collocated R&R process with data centers to address (1) data security concerns, (2) transboundary shipments of e-waste (whole HDDs vs. components), and (3) the need for a qualified manufacturing process for disassembly, which is required to reuse components in new HDDs.
KW - Circular economy
KW - Closed-loop
KW - Hard disk drive
KW - Life cycle assessment
KW - Rare earth
KW - Remanufacturing
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U2 - 10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105694
DO - 10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105694
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85107793110
SN - 0921-3449
VL - 173
JO - Resources, Conservation and Recycling
JF - Resources, Conservation and Recycling
M1 - 105694
ER -