Industrial electric motor components

3D view of a foot-mounted industrial electric motor with a finned housing and output shaft

Permanent-magnet industrial motors combine rotor magnets, copper stator windings, steel laminations and bearings. The interaction between the stator’s magnetic field and the rotor magnets produces rotation.

Motor technology determines its material content. In NdFeB designs, neodymium is part of a magnet alloy with iron and boron. Separating magnets, copper and steel is a key step in material recovery.

Talk with ERI

Magnets that help turn the rotor

In a permanent-magnet motor, the rotor’s magnets interact with the stator’s magnetic field to create rotation.

NdFeB magnets, copper windings and steel parts are distinct material streams. Identifying and separating them is the starting point for recovery.

Drawing of the representative rotor clamped by its shaft: eight poles of three chamfered magnet tiles each on a laminated back iron, under a thin retaining sleeve. — The same model’s eight poles of three tiles each. The free end retainer and the thin retaining sleeve come off first; only then can the tiles lift clear. Lighter and darker tiles mark poles magnetized in opposite directions.