Old hard drives may hide neodymium, dysprosium, praseodymium, and terbium, and a United States company is expanding its network with a new 93,000-square-foot facility to recover rare earths used in electric cars, artificial intelligence, defense, and renewable energy.

Written by Fabio Lucas Carvalho

Published on 21/06/2026 at 18:05

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The company Paladin Envirotech expands its network in the United States to collect discarded hard drives, servers, and computers, using an acid-free technology that recovers four rare earths used in electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, defense, advanced equipment, and renewable energy systems

Discarded equipment, such as hard drives, servers, and industrial components, may hide rare earths for artificial intelligence, electric motors, renewable energy, defense, and advanced equipment. Paladin Envirotech wants to recover these materials before they leave the U.S. economy.

The Ohio-based company aims to transform end-of-life equipment into strategic resources.

The proposal is to prevent critical materials from being sent abroad, directed to low-value recycling, or discarded in landfills.

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New unit expands collection network

To reduce travel, Paladin expanded its collection and processing structure. The Phoenix unit in Arizona adds 93,000 square feet of capacity and serves Arizona, Nevada, southern California, and New Mexico.

Centers installed in three states complete a distributed network. The system follows a hub-and-spoke model, bringing collection and processing closer to the locations where computers, servers, and hard drives are taken out of operation.

Technology recovers four rare earths

After collection, the components undergo a patented method developed with researchers associated with the Critical Minerals Institute, the Ames National Laboratory of the United States Department of Energy, and the Iowa State University Research Foundation.

The process uses acid-free dissolution to recover neodymium, dysprosium, praseodymium, and terbium. These elements are part of performance magnets used in electric vehicles, defense technologies, computational equipment, and renewable energy solutions.

The initiative follows the concept of urban mining, which recovers valuable materials from manufactured and used products. As mining projects can take years or decades, electronic reuse emerges as a faster alternative.

Recycling, however, will hardly meet all future demand. The contribution will depend on the ability to operate nationally efficiently and recover significant volumes.

Do you believe that companies and governments should create nearby collection points for old hard drives and servers? Comment on how this type of network could prevent waste, reduce disposals, and keep strategic materials circulating within the economy.

With information from businesswire, in an announcement made on June 17, 2026.

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Old hard drives may hide neodymium, dysprosium, praseodymium, and terbium, and a United States company is expanding its network with a new 93,000-square-foot facility to recover rare earths used in electric cars, artificial intelligence, defense, and renewable energy.

The company Paladin Envirotech expands its network in the United States to collect discarded hard drives, servers, and computers, using an acid-free technology that recovers four rare earths used in electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, defense, advanced equipment, and renewable energy systems

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In the cold desert of Ladakh, where it hardly rains, engineer Sonam Wangchuk created the ice stupa, a tower that freezes winter water and stores it for irrigating crops in the spring, a simple engineering feat that mimics nature.

Libya built over 4,000 kilometers of underground pipelines to bring water from the Sahara to coastal cities in a project that the government itself called the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Chinese woman planted trees for decades while sand buried part of her house, received $5,000 from an American in 1999, and helped transform the desert into a forest of 8 million trees in China.

Almost 6,000 residents live concentrated along a single street nearly 9 km long in the interior of Poland. Houses form a continuous row, and behind them, narrow agricultural strips emerge, creating one of the most unusual rural patterns in Europe.

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