This press release was originally published at Cyclic Materials.

Microsoft Makes Strategic Investment in Cyclic Materials to Accelerate Climate Tech Innovation

July 16, 2024

Cyclic Materials, an advanced metals recycling company building a circular supply chain for rare earth elements and other critical metals, today announced it has received an equity investment from Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, an initiative dedicated to accelerating technology development and deployment of new climate innovations. This investment is representative of Microsoft’s commitment to a circular economy and interest in hard drive rare earth element recycling.

Over the past two years, Cyclic has developed a patent-pending technology, CC360™, to specifically address the challenge of recovering rare earths contained in end-of-life hard drives. While hard drives are typically sent to an IT asset disposal (ITAD) company at the end of life, this disposal process is designed for data destruction, followed by shredding of drives for the recovery of other metals such as gold and silver. The rare earths contained are currently not recovered. With the CC360™, ITAD companies can separate a portion of hard drives for rare earth recovery, while retaining the rest of the hard drives for their traditional process. These separated magnets can then be processed by Cyclic Materials’ processing technologies, unlocking an additional value stream from hard drive disposal.

“Microsoft is working to achieve zero waste across our direct operations, products, and packaging by 2030. This means adopting a circular economy approach,” said Brandon Middaugh, Senior Director, Climate Innovation Fund, Microsoft. “As demand for rare earth elements continues to grow in importance, we’re excited to support the creation of a sustainable supply of these materials with this investment.”

Established in 2021, Cyclic Materials is an industry leader developing technologies that are capable of economically, sustainably and domestically transforming end-of-life (EOL) products into valuable raw materials. The recycling of rare earths delivers significant environmental benefits in comparison to mining processes, including a reduced carbon footprint and water usage. Cyclic Materials recently opened its Kingston-based “Hub100” plant, deploying its proprietary hydrometallurgical technology, REEPure™, and helping fulfill the ever-increasing demand for domestic sources of mixed rare earth oxide (MREO) in North America.

“We have been working with Cyclic over the past few months to trial the use of the CC360™ in our operations. We have seen tremendous performance improvements through the development and achieved throughput of one hard drive per second,” said Sean Magann, chief commercial officer at Sims Lifecycle Services (SLS). “This solution enables us to drive further value out of disposed hard drives, by reclaiming the critical rare earths, while maintaining the data security of the hard drives being disposed. An additional benefit is the reduction of magnets clogging our shredders. We look forward to deploying this technology across our operations.”

“We’re thrilled by this endorsement from Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund as a key strategic investor who is like minded in creating a circular supply chain for rare earth elements contained in hard drives used in their data center operations,” said Ahmad Ghahreman, co-founder and CEO of Cyclic Materials. “This support enables us to accelerate the deployment of our commercial facilities, which is a critical step in growing the domestic supply of rare earths in North America that support the energy transition. Additionally, we value the input that SLS has provided, helping us to validate our new CC360™ technology that we believe will prove invaluable to large data center operators such as Microsoft as they work towards their circularity and sustainability goals.”

Sims Lifecycle Services

Sims Lifecycle Services provides solutions to extend the life of data center and enterprise IT assets, and the company recognizes the value in end-of-life electronics, components and materials. SLS works with hyperscale and cloud data centers to reuse and redeploy data center equipment. Fortune 500 companies are supported by SLS to navigate ongoing technology shifts by securely and responsibly managing the disposition of IT equipment and recycling of electronic products.

IT asset disposition (ITAD) and electronics recycling services offered at SLS support the evolution of the electronics industry movement toward circularity. SLS clients benefit from data security, maximum IT value recovery, global compliance and sustainable IT use. As a responsible corporate citizen, and in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, we continuously seek new ways to contribute to the circular economy.

Visit the SLS website, www.simslifecycle.com for more information on the company’s global coverage and services offered or for media contact email: [email protected].