PhD Studentship - Closing the Loop on Critical Minerals Recycling Rare-Earths from Polymer Bond[...] in Birmingham

Rare-earth permanent magnets underpin modern life. From electric motors and wind turbines to medical imaging, sensors, and consumer electronics, Neodymium-Iron-Boron (NdFeB) magnets are essential to modern-day technologies and the net-zero transition. Despite their strategic importance, the UK remains heavily dependent on fragile global supply chains and primary mining routes with significant environmental impacts. This PhD project therefore addresses an urgent challenge: how to sustainably recycle polymer-bonded NdFeB magnets.

Polymer-bonded NdFeB magnets are increasingly used because they enable complex geometries and compact designs, but these same advantages make them exceptionally difficult to recycle. The magnetic powder is tightly encapsulated within a highly resistant polymer matrix, and if this polymer is not effectively removed, recycled magnets contain a much higher carbon content than their virgin counterparts, and hence suffer severe degradation in performance. With an estimated 13,000 tonnes per year of polymer-bonded NdFeB magnet waste expected globally, the lack of an end-of-life strategy represents both an environmental risk and a missed economic opportunity.

This interdisciplinary PhD project will develop the first sustainable, closed-loop recycling process for polymer-bonded NdFeB magnets. The research will harness chemical recycling approaches to selectively dissolve the polymer matrix, enabling recovery of a high-purity NdFeB powder suitable for reuse in new magnetic materials. The project spans the full value chain: identifying and characterising real electronic waste streams, through solvent-based polymer removal and powder recovery, to remanufacturing recycled magnets and evaluating their magnetic performance.

Alongside this experimental work, you will have the opportunity to undertake environmental and techno-economic assessment, ensuring that the proposed process is not only scientifically robust, but also industrially and environmentally viable. You will receive comprehensive, world-class training across materials science and chemical processing. You will gain hands-on experience with state-of-the-art facilities, including Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and magnetic permeametry. There will also be the option to use process modelling tools such as Aspen HYSYS and SimaPro for life-cycle assessment.

You will be supported by an experienced supervisory team spanning polymers, chemical processing, and magnetics, alongside dedicated technical staff and postdoctoral researchers. This PhD is further supported through close industrial collaboration with Heraeus and SGTec, providing exposure to real industrial challenges, insight into product-driven materials innovation, and opportunities to shape research with commercial relevance. Through this partnership, you will develop a strong understanding of how fundamental research translates into industrial impact.

Beyond technical excellence, the PhD will equip you with highly transferable skills in experimental design, data analysis, scientific communication, project management, and interdisciplinary collaboration. You will join a vibrant, inclusive research community, and graduate as a highly employable researcher positioned at the forefront of sustainable materials and critical minerals research. This is an opportunity to deliver research with real-world impact, helping to secure critical materials for the UK while accelerating the transition to a low-carbon, circular economy.

For any informal queries, please contact Dr. Mike Jenkins (m.j.jenkins@bham.ac.uk), or Dr. Matt Keith (m.j.keith@bham.ac.uk). If you are ready to apply, then please click the “Apply” button above, and select “PhD Department of Metallurgy and Materials FT (Materials branch)”, for entry in 2026-27.

This project is funded by the EPSRC's Doctoral Landscape Award, with additional co-funding for bench fees provided by the Schools of Metallurgy and Materials, and Chemical Engineering.