Cyclic Materials Opens First Commercial-Scale Rare Earth Magnet Recycling Plant in Arizona

Cyclic Materials‘ new plant in Mesa, Arizona can process up to 25,000 metric tons of magnet-bearing end-of-life products a year, and it yields the company’s Mag-Xtract rare earth magnet material along with copper, aluminum and steel. Commercial operation has begun.

MagCycle, Cyclic Materials’ process for automated mechanical separation of magnets from end-of-life products, reaches commercial scale for the first time at Mesa, according to the company. It sits at the front end of a recovery platform that combines magnet separation, rare earth refining and metallization.

Most EV traction motors are permanent-magnet machines built around neodymium-iron-boron magnets, the class of material Cyclic Materials’ process recovers.

More than 7,000 metric tons of magnet-bearing material have already been delivered to the Mesa site under long-term commercial supply partnerships, the company reports. The first shipments to US customers are expected in September 2026.

Cyclic Materials says the Mesa plant is a domestic destination for magnet-bearing end-of-life products that might otherwise be exported as waste. The plant was completed 17 months after it was first announced, and a rare earth recycling campus in South Carolina is in development that will combine the company’s magnet recovery and refining platforms on a single site.

“This facility delivers new capacity for the US to keep resource-rich products here and build domestic rare earth supply,” said Ahmad Ghahreman, CEO and founder of Cyclic Materials. “Cyclic is quickly closing gaps in the domestic supply chain as we expedite our rare earth and critical mineral infrastructure development in the US. This means shaving months, if not years, off the delivery of the critical materials required to drive AI, energy, and defense sectors forward.”

Source: Cyclic Materials