- Recycling without chemicals supports us supply chains and discharge waste
- The recovered materials support electric cars, wind energy and the manufacture of advanced electronics
- The lasting end -of -life plan redefines the future for storage in American data centers
A new Pilot Program of Microsoft and Western Digital has demonstrated a new method of recycling rare earth elements (REE) from low -cost records.
The initiative, developed in collaboration with the recycling of critical materials (CMR) and the recycling of pedalpoints, successfully recovered almost 90% of rare earth oxides and approximately 80% of the total mass of raw materials from end -of -life players and related components.
Using materials from data-based data centers in Microsoft, the project has treated around 50,000 pounds of hard drives and grated uprights, converting them into high purity materials. These can now be reused between key sectors such as electric vehicles, wind energy and advanced computer science.
Old hard drives are now more value
The project uses an acid -free and environmentally friendly recycling process which reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 95% compared to conventional exploitation and refining.
This approach not only recovers rare earths such as neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium, which are essential for the magnetic systems of the hard disk, but also extracts from precious metals, in particular copper, aluminum, steel and gold, strengthening them in the American supply chain. This shows that even external hard drives can have a second ecological life.
Despite the essential role of rare earths in cloud infrastructure, current domestic recycling efforts in the United States recover less than 10% of these materials.
Meanwhile, more than 85% of the global production of REE remains concentrated abroad, but this pilot aims to change that, offering an evolving national solution which reduces discharge waste, improves the resilience of the supply chain and reduces dependence on foreign sources.
“This is an enormous effort of all the parties involved. This pilot program has shown that sustainable and economically viable end-of-life management (EOL) for hard drives is feasible,” said Chuck Graham, vice-president of cloud supply companies, the supply, sustainability and security chain at Microsoft.
Acid -free dissolution recycling (ADR), a technology developed at the Critical Material Innovation Center (CMI), was at the heart of this achievement.
“This project is important because the raw materials of the hard drive will continue to grow worldwide while AI continues to stimulate the demand for hard disk data storage,” said Tom Lograsso, CMI director.
Via StorageNewsletter
