NioCorp to investigate feasibility of rare earth permanent magnet recycling

NioCorp Developments plans to investigate the feasibility of recycling permanent rare earth magnets as part of NioCorp’s proposed Elk Creek Critical Minerals Project in southeast Nebraska. NioCorp plans to examine the technical and commercial feasibility of recycling post-consumer neodymium-iron-boron permanent rare earth magnets back into separated rare earth oxides that can be used to make new NdFeB magnets. The research is expected to focus first on bench-scale testing and, depending upon results, possibly moving to demonstration-scale testing. This investigation is expected to be conducted separately from the Company’s ongoing work to update its Elk Creek Project Feasibility Study. Once launched, the R&D program will focus on determining efficient processes to de-magnetize, prepare, and grind down used magnets into a feedstock that can then be converted by NioCorp in its planned Elk Creek Project chemical process back into separated rare earth products.