Western Digital has developed a way to mine old hard drives for rare earth elements, which promises to ease the tech industry’s dependence on carbon-heavy mining.
A Western Digital white paper released Thursday says it worked with Microsoft to recycle “47,000 pounds of end-of-life hard disk drives (HDD), solid state drives (SSD), and caddies” into critical and valuable metals for the US supply chain.
The company’s blog post adds that the newly developed recycling process can “result in ~90% high-yield elemental and rare earth recovery and ~80% capture rate of all shredded material.”
Currently, if you recycle an old hard disk drive, it’s shredded into tiny bits that electronics manufacturers can reuse for new parts. But existing recycling processes have struggled to extract the rare earth elements used in HDDs, such as Neodymium, which is widely used as a magnet in today’s electronics. “Currently, only 1–2% of REEs produced globally are recovered through recycling processes,” says a 2024 paper from the US International Trade Commission.
Western Digital adds that “rare earths are often melted down with steel because many recovery processes involve a highly corrosive process that is not eco-friendly nor economical—and the rare earths are lost.”
In response, the company explored using an 8-year-old “acid-free dissolution recycling (ADR)” process from Critical Materials Recycling, an Iowa company that specializes in reclaiming rare earths from old electronics.
(Credit: Western Digital)
“Instead of high temperatures and/or harsh chemicals such as strong acids, ADR utilizes selective leaching via a copper salt solution. This selective leaching makes the technology ideal for low-concentrated rare earth feedstocks, where magnet isolation is not feasible,” WD says.
Recommended by Our Editors
(Credit: Western Digital)
The initial pilot program recovered 90% of the rare earths. This high yield rate prompted Western Digital to expand the test to Microsoft, which involved collecting thousands of retired hard drives from the company’s data centers. The companies then went through “multiple pilots and invested in both new equipment and innovations to create a mass production ecosystem at scale for retrieval of rare earths, which was completed in December 2024.”
The new recycling process uses “95% less carbon than virgin mining,” Western Digital says. In addition, the system can be replicated to cover more industries. “The project isn’t just a milestone; it’s a blueprint for large-scale, domestic recycling of essential metals and materials that will drive sustainable progress for years to come,” Western Digital says.
The improved recycling process arrives as China has started restricting rare earth exports amid the country’s trade with the US. As a result, it could become more crucial for the US to rely on rare earth recycling processes.
Get Our Best Stories!
Your Daily Dose of Our Top Tech News
By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Thanks for signing up!
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
About Michael Kan
Senior Reporter
