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Trinseo Chief Technology & Sustainability Officer Han Hendriks (left) signs a memorandum of understanding with MagREEsource CEO Eric Petit (right). Photo: ©Trinseo |
Trinseo and MagREEsource explore collaborative opportunities for innovative, high value recycling solutions. This arrangement will explore opportunities for combining Trinseo’s proprietary polymer dissolution recycling capabilities with MagREEsource’s proprietary rare earth magnets recycling model. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed to signify the collaboration.
Trinseo’s technology uses a physical recycling process that requires minimal sorting, extracting polycarbonate (PC) from entire end-of-life products, even in mixed or contaminated materials. The extracted PC is recycled into new materials with over 70% cradle-to-gate estimated product carbon footprint reduction compared to its virgin counterpart, while non-PC components, including magnets, remain for further recycling. This two-stage process is particularly effective for consumer and industrial products made primarily of PC and containing magnetic systems, especially neodymium (NdFeB) magnets vital for low-carbon applications such as wind turbines, electric vehicle motors, and automation.
“The technologies from Trinseo and MagREEsource are complementary, and we believe that value chain collaborations are fundamental to advancing sustainability,” said Han Hendriks, Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer at Trinseo. “This partnership shows the shared vision of both companies.”
With its circular magnet-to-magnet model MagREEsource is dedicated to recovering end-of-life rare-earth magnets and manufacturing new low-carbon magnets for demanding applications like windmills, electrical vehicles, aeronautics or medical to meet EU market demand.
“Our collaboration has potential to benefit the value chain as byproducts of Trinseo’s dissolution process could serve as input materials for our process. Byproduct magnets are an important part of supply for our MagFactory (1,000 t/year of magnets production), construction of which is anticipated to begin at the end of 2026” said Erick Petit, President, and co-founder at MagREEsource.
