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Products and materials.

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

A smartphone holds a battery, circuit boards, cameras, a speaker and a vibration motor in under a centimetre. Open the back to see them.

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3D view of a representative smartphone, screen up
Scroll to examine

Smartphone components

A smartphone combines a lithium-ion battery, stacked circuit boards, camera modules, a loudspeaker and a vibration motor in an aluminium frame. Each is its own material stream.

The same phone turned over with its back glass lifted aside, showing the charging coil, battery, logic board and camerasThe same phone taken apart: battery, cameras, logic board, loudspeaker and vibration motor lifted from the frame

On this design the back glass comes off first. The wireless charging coil on its inside is a flat spiral of copper.

The battery is the largest single part. Keep lithium-ion batteries intact and use a collection program that accepts your device.

The logic board, its metal shields and the camera modules are circuit-board and metal streams.

The loudspeaker and the vibration motor both use magnets; whether they are rare-earth depends on the design.

Magnets that move and make sound

A phone’s loudspeaker and its vibration motor both work by passing current through a coil next to a permanent magnet.

Rare-earth magnet applications include speakers. Whether a specific phone uses rare-earth magnets, and which alloy, depends on its design.

The vibration motor cut lengthwise: two flat copper coils on a flex circuit under a heavy mass that carries two magnets, held between zigzag springsThe vibration motor’s two small magnets on their own

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 Smartphone 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.