Bentley Motors has announced a three-year research study that aims to revolutionise the sustainability of electric motors. Supporting Bentley's commitment to
offer only hybrid or electric vehicles by 2026, the result could see recycled rare-earth magnets used in selected ancillary motors for the very first time.
The study, titled Rare-earth Recycling for E-machines (RaRE), intends to build on work completed at the University of Birmingham in devising a method of extracting magnets from waste electronics. Furthermore, the project will scale up this process and repurpose the extracted magnetic material into new recyclable magnets for use within bespoke ancillary motors.
With the efforts from this research project, Bentley hopes to progress closer to its goal of leading sustainable luxury mobility
Adding to the sustainability benefits that RaRE will provide, the bespoke motors created through this method promise to minimise complexity through manufacture while supporting the development of the U.K. supply chain for both mass production and low volume components.
This study will run in parallel to Bentley's
OCTOPUS research programme that aims to deliver a breakthrough in e-axle electric powertrains, utilising a fully integrated, free from rare-earth magnet e-axle that supports electric vehicle architectures.
Bentley Motors will lead specification setting and test protocol development and support the design and manufacturing activities, while Hypromag will scale up the recycling processes developed at the University of Birmingham and convert the extracted powders to sintered magnets with properties designed around those required for the auxiliary motors.
Unipart Powertrain Applications Ltd will lead the development of manufacturing scale up routes to ensure facilities and processes defined are suitable for volume automotive manufacture, and Advanced Electric Machines Research Ltd will lead the design and development of the motors.
Intelligent Lifecycle Solutions Ltd will pre-process computer hard disk drives to remove the rare earth magnet containing components from the waste which will be shipped to Hypromag for removal of the rare earth magnets, and the University of Birmingham will provide cast alloys, which will be fed into Hypromag to blend with secondary materials in order to produce sintered magnets.
