Design and Implementation of a Hall Effect Sensor Array Applied to Recycling Hard Drive Magnets

Conference · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2015

OSTI ID:1255653

Kisner, Roger ^[1]; Lenarduzzi, Roberto ^[1]; Killough, Stephen M ^[1]; McIntyre, Timothy J ^[1]

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1. ORNL

Rare earths are an important resource for many electronic components and technologies. Examples abound including Neodymium magnets used in mobile devices and computer hard drives (HDDs), and a variety of renewable energy technologies (e.g., wind turbines). Approximately 21,000 metric tons of Neodymium is processed annually with less than 1% being recycled. An economic system to assist in the recycling of magnet material from post-consumer goods, such as Neodymium Iron Boron magnets commonly found in hard drives is presented. A central component of this recycling measurement system uses an array of 128 Hall Effect sensors arranged in two columns to detect the magnetic flux lines orthogonal to the HDD. Results of using the system to scan planar shaped objects such as hard drives to identify and spatially locate rare-earth magnets for removal and recycling from HDDs are presented. Applications of the sensor array in other identification and localization of magnetic components and assemblies will be presented.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: ORNL work for others
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1255653
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

Hall Effect sensors
Neodymium
hard drives
recycling