Cyclic Materials has announced a US$25-million investment to develop a 140,000-square-foot facility in Kingston, Ont. that will host a commercial-scale magnet recycling unit and research and development labs focused on rare earth metals recycling.

Production is expected to begin operations in Q1 2026 with the capacity to process 500 tonnes of output per year sourced from Toronto-based Cyclic’s upcoming facility in Arizona and the company’s partners.

First, magnet-rich electronics such as motors from electric vehicles (EVs) and Lime’s electronic bikes and scooters, defunct wind turbines, MRI machines and hard drives will be shredded to recover the rare earth metals, producing mixed magnet materials.

Once shipped to Kingston, the mixed magnet materials will be converted into mixed rare earth oxides, and separated into individual elements by Cyclic's partners like Solvay, which has an offtake agreement with Cyclic. Those rare earth elements can be reused to make magnets that are critical to making EV motors, wind turbines, solar panels, grid-scale batteries and consumer electronics.

“With this Centre of Excellence, we’re advancing our core mission: to secure the most critical elements of the energy transition through circular innovation,” Ahmad Ghahreman, CEO of Cyclic, said in a release. “Kingston is where Cyclic began — and now it’s where we’re anchoring our commercial future.”

The company has demonstration facilities in Kingston for its two-step recycling operation.

R&D at the Centre of Excellence

Other than the commercial recycling capacity, the facility will serve as a research and development hub for the company where innovative ways to recycle rare earth metals will be explored.

Partnerships with Queen’s University, Kingston Process Metallurgy, RXN Hub and Impact Chemistry have been forged. Government programs such as Natural Resources Canada’s Critical Minerals Research, Development and Demonstration; Sustainable Development Technology Canada; and the National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program will be providing support.

Over 45 new jobs will be created to staff the centre, Cyclic says.

Onshoring the rare earth metals supply chain

Cyclic is aiming to bring the rare earth metals supply chain closer to home. China dominates the production of rare earth elements, which are vital to the manufacturing of electronics, EVs and clean energy equipment. Political tensions between China and the West have led to a greater focus on domestic rare earth metals production, with recycling as one way to achieve such a goal.

“The idea of keeping rare earths within North America or within the U.S. is becoming more prevalent,” Kunal Phalpher, Cyclic’s senior vice-president of corporate development, told Sustainable Biz Canada in a previous interview.

The Canadian government published a critical minerals strategy that identifies recycling as crucial to the value chain.

An issue is that recycling of rare earth elements is minuscule. A paper published in the journal Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry suggests less than one per cent is recycled from end-products, with the remainder trashed.

By tapping into a trove of rare earth metals from discarded electronics, Cyclic is looking to tackle both sustainability and supply chain problems.

Compared to mining and processing, recycling electronics produces less carbon and environmental impacts, the company says. By maintaining domestic recycling facilities, countries are less disrupted by shifts in trade that are beholden to politics and changing regulations.

To build its global recycling network, Cyclic raised US$57-million in a Series B fundraise in 2024 (Amazon participated in the round) to develop its 150,000-square-foot Arizona facility, where approximately 25,000 tonnes of electronic equipment is expected to be processed per year. Europe is also a target market for the company.