Chinese Society of Rare Earths Advances NdFeB Recycling, Intelligent Sorting and Secondary-Resource Standards

Highlights

• China's GB/T 46992-2025 standard for recyclable rare-earth secondary resources took effect July 1, formalizing the country's recycling framework.
• Researchers presented short-process NdFeB recycling methods for bulk magnets, magnet sludge, and bonded magnets at a Beijing seminar organized by the Chinese Society of Rare Earths.
• Online X-ray analysis was proposed to rapidly identify and sort mixed magnet scrap, addressing a key bottleneck in scaling secondary-resource recovery.
• China is drafting carbon-footprint quantification rules for rare-earth permanent magnets under GB/T 47102-2026, extending its standards reach into environmental metrics.
• The West faces a parallel race: not just building physical recycling capacity, but competing to define the specifications and certification rules for recycled magnets in global supply chains.