Cyclic Materials has received an equity investment from Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund.
Over the past two years, Cyclic Materials has developed its patent-pending CC360 technology to 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 process is designed for data destruction, followed by shredding of drives to recover other metals such as gold and silver. The rare earths contained are 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 of the Climate Innovation Fund at 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."
"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 throughout 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'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."
