LG Electronics to Extract Rare-Earth Elements from Discarded Appliances, Recovering 1.6 Tons a Year

[Financial News] LG Electronics has succeeded in developing a technology that recovers rare-earth permanent magnets from discarded appliances and reuses them as industrial resources. The company plans to expand resource recovery from discarded appliances beyond common metals such as iron, copper and aluminum to include rare-earth elements, a critical mineral, in an effort to stabilize supply chains and build a circular economy.
LG Electronics said on the 27th that it signed a business cooperation agreement (MOU) with the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment and E-Circular Governance at the Metropolitan Resource Circulation Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, for a pilot project to recover discarded permanent magnets from compressors in used appliances. The signing ceremony was attended by Geum Han-seung, first vice minister of the ministry, Lee Sang-jin, chairman of E-Circular Governance, and Yang Hee-gu, head of the Production Innovation Center at LG PRI.
The project focuses on separating and recovering permanent magnets containing rare-earth elements from compressors, a key component in appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioners, at the disposal stage for recycling. Until now, discarded compressors have mostly been recycled as scrap metal after recovering some metals such as copper. Because the permanent magnets inside compressors are strongly magnetic, they are difficult to separate from other parts, which has limited the separate recovery of rare-earth elements.
To solve this, LG Electronics developed its own demagnetization technology that uses magnetic fields to remove the magnetism from the magnets. Unlike conventional heat-treatment methods that separate magnets using high temperatures, the process does not require a high-heat stage, which helps reduce energy use. The company said it also minimizes thermal deformation during recovery, preserving the physical properties of the permanent magnets and increasing their recycling value.
The company also incorporated Artificial Intelligence (AI). Using Vision AI-based image analysis, LG Electronics identifies the size and shape of discarded compressors and precisely locates the permanent magnets inside. Based on this, it applies optimized separation processes for each product to improve recovery efficiency. Through the pilot project, LG Electronics expects to recover about 1.6 tons of rare-earth permanent magnets annually from roughly 40,000 discarded appliances. The recovered magnets will later be used in the development of technologies to turn them into raw materials for producing new magnets.
Rare-earth elements are critical minerals used across advanced industries, including electric vehicles, industrial motors and home appliances. Because production and refining are concentrated in a small number of countries, the importance of building a stable procurement network is rising as global supply chain uncertainty grows. That is why urban mining, which recovers rare-earth elements from discarded products, is drawing attention as a new source of supply.
With this project, LG Electronics plans to expand its existing resource recovery system for discarded appliances, which has focused on iron, copper and aluminum, to include rare-earth-containing permanent magnets and build a domestic circular ecosystem for critical minerals.
Yang Hee-gu, head of the Production Innovation Center at LG PRI, said, "We will continue strengthening our technological capabilities in resource circulation and contribute to realizing a circular economy by recovering and reusing key materials from end-of-life products." He added, "We will also take the lead in building a foundation for the stable circular use of future critical minerals."

[email protected] Jung Won-il Reporter