Highlights
- India-based Attero expands rare earth elements recycling capacity from 300 to 30,000 metric tons per year with $11.5 million investment.
- The company uses a patented deep-tech process to extract high-purity rare earth elements from electronic waste with 98% recovery efficiency.
- Attero aims to reduce import dependency and challenge China's dominance in rare earths through sustainable e-waste recycling.
India-based electronics recycling firm Attero has announced a major investment to scale its rare earth elements (REE) recycling operations, increasing capacity from 300 metric tons to 30,000 metric tons per year. The $11.5 million (₹1 billion) expansion is part of a broader national strategy under India’s National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM) to reduce import dependency and counter China’s rare earth dominance.
Using a globally patented deep-tech process, Attero extracts neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, gadolinium, and cerium from e-waste, including laptops, earphones, wearables, and hard drives. The company claims a recovery efficiency above 98% and purity exceeding 99.9%—a potentially game-changing development in circular rare earth element (REE) supply.
“Attero is the only Indian company with proven technology to produce high-purity REEs at scale from electronic waste,” said CEO Nitin Gupta (opens in a new tab). “The current geopolitical climate demands domestic infrastructure, and we’re ready to meet that need.”
Beyond rare earths, Attero also recovers lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese from battery black mass, reinforcing its position as a key player in the circular economy for critical minerals. The company processed over 150,000 tons of electronics and 15,000 tons of lithium-ion batteries during its last fiscal year, and it plans to double its growth this year through global expansion into the U.S. and Europe.
Attero’s move signals India’s intent to become a serious player in the rare earth recycling space, offering a potential model for other nations seeking to derisk their supply chains without relying on new mining.
Importantly, it is still early days for rare earth recycling, with less than 1% of all rare earth permanent magnets in the USA derived from recycled material.
Those numbers quoted do not make any sense, somebody is making an order of magnitude error.