ARBOK-Neodymium (metal case) — neodymium from phosphogypsum, magnet leachates and magnet-plant effluent

Overview

Neodymium is the heart of the NdFeB permanent magnet: no traction motors, wind turbines or drones without it. It is not mined on its own — it is dispersed in a rare-earth mix that China refines almost monopolistically, holding approximately 85% of mining and approximately 90% of world NdFeB magnet output, with the market in deficit for a second year running. Neodymium traded at approximately $300/kg in Q1 2026, and magnets absorb approximately 90% of all neodymium consumed, driven by electric motors (1–2 kg of NdPr per EV) and wind generation.

Phosphogypsum, the waste of phosphate-fertiliser production, already holds those same rare earths extracted from the ore and simply dumped: the United States alone has stockpiled approximately 1.5 billion tonnes, and the world flow runs to approximately 250 million tonnes per year at roughly 0.3% REO — enough to contain on the order of 130,000 t of neodymium annually, on par with or above total world neodymium mine output of roughly 40,000 t/year. Neodymium also arrives dissolved in end-of-life NdFeB magnet leachate at roughly 225 kg per tonne of scrap, alongside its inseparable partner praseodymium, because the two elements are recovered together as the Nd/Pr pair — solvent-extraction separation of the two adjacent lanthanides demands hundreds to thousands of counter-current stages, which is why the industry sells them together as didymium rather than splitting them.

ARBOK-ZWD runs a neodymium track on the same vacuum-separation platform already proven on phosphogypsum: the stack is dissolved in an acidic medium, then separated under deep vacuum at ambient temperature with no furnaces, membranes, consumables or added chemicals, producing a rare-earth concentrate led by Nd/Pr — ready magnet feedstock rather than waste — while radionuclides report to an immobilised fraction and acid and clean water return as by-products. The stack stops being a liability and becomes a domestic neodymium mine already hauled to the surface.

Applications

Primary feedstock streams:

• Phosphogypsum — the calcium sulphate residue of wet-process phosphoric acid manufacture; rare earths already extracted from the phosphate ore report into it rather than into the acid. World flow approximately 250 Mt/year at approximately 0.3% REO, with neodymium at roughly 17% of the REO basket; United States stockpile approximately 1.5 billion tonnes, world stockpile approximately 7 billion tonnes.
• Magnet leachates — end-of-life NdFeB magnets are dissolved rather than crushed and smelted; the resulting liquor carries roughly 225 kg of neodymium per tonne of scrap (22–23% of magnet mass), alongside roughly 55 kg of praseodymium, per the shared Nd/Pr mass balance for this process. Recycling of end-of-life magnets worldwide remains under 1%.
• Magnet-plant wash waters and grinding effluent — up to 10% of magnet mass is lost as fine swarf into cutting-fluid circuits, pickling baths and plating rinse waters.

Outputs / uses: neodymium for the Nd₂Fe₁₄B lattice of NdFeB permanent magnets — traction motors, wind-turbine generators, drone and robotics actuators, defence systems; a Nd/Pr-led rare-earth concentrate suited as direct magnet feedstock; clean water and acid as by-products; an immobilised radionuclide fraction from phosphogypsum service.

Industries and users: NdFeB magnet manufacturers, EV and wind-turbine supply chains, defence and drone programmes, phosphate and fertiliser producers holding phosphogypsum stacks, magnet recyclers.

Scale: module throughput not stated for the phosphogypsum-specific track in the source; the shared platform's standard module elsewhere in the base runs at a nominal 200 m³/day, containerised.

Operating Principle

Phosphogypsum is dissolved in an acidic medium, then separated by deep-vacuum separation at ambient temperature: no furnaces, no membranes, no consumables, no added chemicals beyond the process's own acid. The output is a rare-earth concentrate led by neodymium and praseodymium — ready magnet feedstock, not a mixed waste stream — while radionuclides go into an immobilised fraction of the processed volume, and acid and clean water return as co-products.

The same platform runs the magnet-leachate case: end-of-life magnets are demagnetised and dissolved, and the deep-vacuum stage separates the acid from the dissolved metal load in the same pass that removes the water, rather than titrating it against a neutralising reagent — the step that defeats classical solvent-extraction and precipitation routes at small scale. In both cases, the Nd/Pr split into individual oxides is performed in the same pass, inside the solution itself, with only final polishing after it — so the product does not have to leave the country to be separated.

Key Parameters

| Parameter | Value |

|---|---|

| Vacuum | deep vacuum |

| Process temperature | ambient; no thermal input |

| Consumables | none — no furnaces, membranes or added chemicals |

| Radionuclide fraction | immobilised, a small share of processed volume |

| By-products | acids and clean water alongside the rare-earth concentrate |

| Phosphogypsum grade | ≈0.3% REO; neodymium ≈17% of the REO basket |

| Neodymium yield per tonne of phosphogypsum | ≈0.5 kg |

| World phosphogypsum flow | ≈250 Mt/year |

| Contained neodymium, world flow | ≈130,000 t/year — on par with or above world Nd mine output (≈40,000 t/year) |

| US phosphogypsum stockpile | ≈1.5 billion t |

| World phosphogypsum stockpile | ≈7 billion t, holding an estimated ≈3.5 million t of recoverable neodymium |

| Neodymium content, magnet leachate (shared Nd/Pr mass balance) | ≈225 kg per tonne of scrap, 22–23% of magnet mass |

| Neodymium price | ≈$300/kg, Q1 2026 |

| China share | ≈85% of mining, ≈90% of world NdFeB magnet output |

| Magnet demand for NdPr | ≈1–2 kg per EV traction motor |

| Module throughput, product purity, site-level recovery rate | [требует уточнения из базы] |

Architecture and Components

A phosphogypsum-dissolution stage using the process's own acid medium, feeding a deep-vacuum separation train that returns clean water and acid as co-products and delivers a Nd/Pr-led rare-earth concentrate; a parallel radionuclide-immobilisation line takes up the residual activity as a small share of processed volume. On the magnet-recycling side, the same deep-vacuum principle acts on leachate and wash-water streams, separating acid from dissolved metal in one pass. Individual Nd and Pr oxides are resolved in the same pass, with final polishing only. The train is laid out to the composition of the particular stack and to the flow it discharges, so module count and the configuration of the dissolution stage are set per site.

Advantages

Technical: treats phosphogypsum and magnet-plant liquors as whole streams rather than targeting neodymium alone by selective chemistry; no furnaces, membranes or added reagents; delivers a rare-earth concentrate that is direct magnet feedstock rather than a waste stream requiring further beneficiation.

Economic: the phosphogypsum stack stops being a pure liability and starts producing a saleable rare-earth concentrate alongside acid and clean water; the magnet-leachate route recovers neodymium from scrap that is otherwise remelted as iron.

Environmental: radionuclides in phosphogypsum are immobilised rather than left in an open stack; magnet-plant effluent and grinding sludge stop being discharged as hazardous waste; acid demand is met from the process's own medium rather than purchased reagent.

Strategic: every tonne of neodymium recovered domestically is, in the source's framing, a tonne of strategic independence from a single-country supply chain that currently controls approximately 90% of world magnet output; the US phosphogypsum stockpile alone is described as holding neodymium enough for roughly 500 million EV traction motors, already above ground.

Integrations

Platform basis: ARBOK-VC (Vacuum Cracking) and ARBOK Critical-Materials Recovery. Shares its process, feedstock and the Nd/Pr mass balance directly with ARBOK-Praseodymium. Phosphogypsum feedstock connects this case to ARBOK-PHOSPHOGYPSUM and to ARBOK-Lanthanum-Cerium, which draws La and Ce from the same concentrate. In-solution oxide separation relates to ARBOK-Scandium-REE and to ARBOK-Dysprosium, which shares the same feedstock streams for the heavy-rare-earth fraction. Dry separated fractions relate to ARBOK-CRYSTALLIZER.

Deployment & Operation

The module is installed on an existing phosphogypsum stack or fresh phosphogypsum flow, or on a magnet-recycling leachate stream, with final polishing where individual oxides are required on site. The process is additive to phosphoric-acid manufacture and to magnet-scrap dissolution, both of which already occur — the module intercepts the resulting liquor rather than replacing an upstream step.

Target geographies stated in the source: United States, Morocco, Mexico, Turkey, Jordan and the European Union, where vast phosphogypsum stacks form a potential domestic source of magnet feedstock; electric-motor and wind-turbine supply chains, where neodymium is strategic; defence and drone programmes, where dependence on a single external supplier is treated as critical.

TRL

Not stated as a number in the source. The post describes the neodymium track as running on the vacuum-separation unit already proven on phosphogypsum — i.e. as an application of the ARBOK-ZWD platform rather than as a separately validated case. The base records the same platform at TRL 8–9 on comparable streams elsewhere (see ARBOK-Dysprosium, ARBOK-Scandium-REE, ARBOK-Praseodymium).

Market Potential

Neodymium traded at approximately $300/kg in Q1 2026. Magnets absorb approximately 90% of world neodymium consumption, driven by electric motors (1–2 kg of NdPr per EV) and wind generation. China holds approximately 90% of world NdFeB magnet output and approximately 85% of mining, and the market has been in deficit for a second year running — every tonne of neodymium produced outside China is framed in the source as strategic independence rather than incremental supply.

At scale, the world phosphogypsum flow of approximately 250 Mt/year at approximately 0.3% REO is estimated to contain approximately 130,000 t of neodymium per year — on par with or above total world neodymium mine output of roughly 40,000 t/year — valued in the source at approximately $4.6 billion per year in neodymium alone from the United States stockpile. The accumulated United States stockpile of approximately 1.5 billion tonnes is described as a decades-long neodymium mine already hauled to the surface, and, on the source's own scale check, as holding neodymium equivalent to roughly 500 million EV traction motors' worth of NdPr.

Typical Project Economics

Per tonne of phosphogypsum, at approximately 0.3% REO with neodymium at approximately 17% of the REO basket: approximately 0.5 kg of neodymium, worth approximately $150 at $300/kg, plus accompanying rare earths from the same concentrate.

At scale, the source values the annual neodymium content of United States phosphogypsum processing at approximately $4.6 billion per year, without breaking this down into a per-module capital or operating cost — no module-level CAPEX, OPEX or throughput-to-revenue model is given in the source for the neodymium track specifically.

The magnet-leachate route, drawing on the shared Nd/Pr mass balance for this process: neodymium at 22–23% of magnet mass (≈225 kg per tonne of scrap) is one component of a combined Nd/Pr value of approximately 280 kg per tonne of scrap at $106/kg (prices taken 20% under prevailing 2026 levels), or approximately $30,000 per tonne of scrap for the Nd/Pr pair together, within a total recoverable value (including dysprosium and terbium) of approximately $37,000 per tonne of scrap now remelted as iron.

Risk Factors

Neodymium fraction of the REO basket varies by rock source. The 17% figure used for the phosphogypsum route is a distribution estimate, not a per-site assay; the source itself notes higher confidence in magnet-leachate composition, which is well constrained by manufacture, than in phosphogypsum distributions.

Purity per pass is the number to state. The Nd/Pr split is performed in the pass itself, with final polishing only. Purity achieved per pass on the Nd–Pr pair is commercial information and is disclosed under NDA.

Market absorption and price basis. The $300/kg reference price is a single-quarter (Q1 2026) figure and the source does not provide a time series comparable to the NdPr oxide and praseodymium metal series given for the Praseodymium case; revenue modelling built on this price alone should be treated as indicative rather than current.

Module-level economics, recovery efficiency and product purity for the phosphogypsum-specific neodymium track. [требует уточнения из базы]

Related Technologies

ARBOK-Praseodymium · ARBOK-VC (Vacuum Cracking) · ARBOK Critical-Materials Recovery · ARBOK-PHOSPHOGYPSUM · ARBOK-Lanthanum-Cerium · ARBOK-Scandium-REE · ARBOK-Dysprosium · ARBOK-CRYSTALLIZER