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Products and materials.

Discover the magnets, metals and electronics inside everyday products, industrial equipment and data centers.

Industrial electric motors turn electrical energy into motion. Explore a permanent-magnet design from housing to rotor.

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3D view of a foot-mounted industrial electric motor with a finned housing, terminal box and output shaft
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Industrial motor components

A permanent-magnet industrial motor combines copper windings, a steel core, bearings and rotor magnets to turn electrical energy into motion.

Opened industrial motor showing the bearing, copper stator windings and rotor togetherOpen steel ball bearing with grooved races and a cageCopper stator winding detail from the same motor modelRotor with 24 separated magnet tiles across eight poles

The housing protects the motor’s working components. Bearings support the shaft, while the rotor turns inside the stationary stator.

Current in the stator windings produces a changing magnetic field that interacts with the rotor magnets to create torque.

Neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) is one magnet alloy used in permanent-magnet motors. Copper windings, steel laminations and bearings form separate material streams.

Industrial motors also use induction designs and other magnet materials. The motor’s design determines which materials are available for recovery.

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.

A section across the motor: stator teeth with copper in the slots, the air gap, and eight poles of magnet tiles on the rotor, with field lines from pole to poleThe rotor’s 24 magnet tiles laid out in a grid, eight poles of three

How magnets can be recovered

  1. Collected. Magnets from many products are gathered for recovery, once each product’s data, safety and handling requirements are met.
  2. Broken down. Mechanical processing breaks magnets into fragments and granules.
  3. Refined. Refining separates the rare-earth elements, typically as oxides. Iron and other materials leave as a separate stream.
  4. Made new. Oxides can be converted to metals and alloys, then made into new magnets. Each is a separate industrial stage.
Magnets of many shapes, from headphones, speakers, phones, drives and motors, gathered in a trayThe magnets broken down into a heap of granulesA dish of pale rare-earth oxide powder beside a separate dish of dark iron-rich remainderThe oxide beside a rare-earth metal ingot and a stack of new magnet blocks

Sort the wall: 31 still to go Industrial motor details
Sources

An interactive challenge

Sort the wall.

Thirty-one devices, opened up: servers, phones, appliances, tools and motors. Drag each one to the bin you think is right, a rare-earth magnet, another kind of magnet, or no permanent magnet at all. Open any device first if you want a closer look.

Every answer is what a device most likely holds; magnet type depends on each product’s design.

Data center and IT

Servers, drives and computers: voice-coil magnets in every hard disk, small motors in every fan.

Personal electronics

Phones, wearables and audio: the smallest magnets, in the largest numbers.

Audio

Speakers of every size. Newer and smaller tends to mean rare-earth; older and larger tends to mean ferrite.

Appliances

Kitchen and household equipment: a mix of ferrite, induction and no magnet at all.

Tools and mobility

Cordless tools and e-mobility run on compact permanent-magnet motors.

Motors and parts

What an industrial permanent-magnet motor separates into: magnets, copper and steel.

Wall sorted

0 of 31 right.

0 points

Rare-earth magnets turned up where space is tight and power matters; ferrite where size was no object; and none at all in heaters, induction motors and bearings. That is what recovery sorts for.

What could we recover together?

Reference

Product profiles.

Specs, materials and recovery notes for each product.