EM-TECH @Eco-Mobility 2024

Project partner Alejandro Robles Martin from UrbanGold and Mettop GmbH presented his approach for a new end-of-life scenario for in-wheel motors at the Eco-Mobility 2024 Conference organized by A3PS.

The proposed end-of-life scenario is based on the following key considerations:

• Urge for a directly applicable solution to recover rare earths from e-motors.
• Lack of standardization in the current design of e-motors, which hinders the development of robotic solutions to automatically disassemble the permanent magnets. Furthermore, no legislation regarding design standardization is considered to be implemented in the near future, since this can jeopardize seriously the innovation and improvements for e-motors. 
• Challenges in the non-destructive extraction of internally mounted permanent magnets.
• Reduction in rare earths content in new generations of e-motor, which decreases their monetary value at the end-of-life stage. 
• Expansion of the primary production industry of rare earth elements in Europe.