Recycling method for heavy rare earth element and recycling method for rare earth magnet

Abstract

A method for collecting a heavy rare earth element from a molten salt electrolysis residue and recycling the heavy rare earth element that includes mixing coarse particles of the molten salt electrolysis residue with a fluorinating material followed by firing to fluorinate the coarse particles, pulverizing the fluorinated coarse particles to obtain a powder, and mixing the powder with R, an R-M alloy, or an R-M-B alloy, where R is a rare earth element selected from Y, La, Ce, Nd, Pr, Sm, Gd, Dy, Tb, and Ho, M is a transition metal such as Fe or Co, and B is boron, heating and melting the mixture, separating a molten alloy from slag, and selectively extracting the heavy rare earth element into the molten alloy. The method can efficiently recycle a heavy rare earth element in an alloy form, useful for recycling a rare earth magnet.