If you hear "praseodymium recycling," read it as NdPr magnet recycling. That's where Pr actually sits in meaningful volumes. Most other praseodymium uses are too dispersed or too low-grade to become a big recycling stream anytime soon.
The recycling reality in one sentence
Praseodymium recycling is mainly about recovering NdPr from NdFeB magnets, and the best routes try to keep the magnet alloy intact (short-loop), because splitting rare earths back into individual oxides is expensive and messy.
This is the cleanest, most economical stream because:
A lot of "real recycling" today starts here, not from end-of-life products.
Big sources are:
The issue is not "are there magnets?" It's collecting them efficiently, identifying grades, and removing coatings and junk without wrecking the alloy.
This is the most promising route when you have relatively clean NdFeB inputs.
Core idea: use hydrogen to break magnets into a usable powder, then reprocess into new magnets with minimal chemical separation. This is typically discussed as HPMS (Hydrogen Processing of Magnetic Scrap) and closely related hydrogen decrepitation routes.
Why it matters for praseodymium: Pr stays inside the NdPr alloy. You're not "recovering Pr" as a pure commodity, you're recycling NdPr-bearing magnet material.
What can go wrong:
This is closer to "traditional metallurgy":
It can handle dirtier feedstocks and mixed scrap better, but it's:
For end-of-life products, magnets are often buried inside assemblies. Disassembly is labor-intensive unless designs are optimized for recovery (they usually are not).
This is where most "recycling stories" get vague, because it's unglamorous but critical:
Hydrogen decrepitation breaks sintered magnets into powder. From there, the powder can be:
This "short-loop" approach is widely discussed in technical literature because it can reduce the need for full chemical separation.
If the feed is oxidized or composition drifts, you may need adjustments (blending, adding fresh material, or routing to long-loop). This is why input quality and sorting matter so much.
Big-ticket magnet demand growth (EVs, turbines) does not instantly translate into end-of-life supply. Wind turbines, for example, have long operating lives before magnets become available at scale.
Even within "NdFeB," grades vary (Dy/Tb content, coatings, manufacturing routes). Short-loop recycling wants homogeneity. When inputs are mixed, economics and performance suffer.
Recycling does not magically bypass the need for:
That's why policy focus is shifting toward building full domestic loops (recycling + magnet manufacturing), not just collecting scrap.
If you're assessing a recycler or a "circular NdPr" claim:
If NdPr becomes unreliable or expensive, OEMs can:
Not at scale. Pr is usually too dispersed, concentrations are low, and collection streams are not designed for it. The scalable route is magnets.
For clean, known NdFeB inputs: short-loop hydrogen processing (HPMS / hydrogen decrepitation). For mixed and contaminated inputs: long-loop chemical recovery is often the fallback.
It ramps with two things: (1) more magnet manufacturing scrap loops now, and (2) larger end-of-life flows later (EVs and turbines are a lagging wave). That's why many policy plans treat recycling as a medium-to-long-term lever, not an immediate fix.