Redesign. Recover. Recycle:
Leading Electric Motor Circularity

Building a truly circular economy begins with design. MAXIMA is pioneering for modular electric motors, created specifically for easy disassembly, repair, and recycling right from the drawing board. By making components accessible and removing barriers to recovery, the project ensures valuable materials like magnets can be reclaimed efficiently and reused, instead of ending up as waste. Hands-on research at ENSAM provides real-world insights, mapping each challenge and opportunity during the disassembly of EV motors.

• Lab-based disassembly of EV motors at ENSAM has mapped every bolt, connections, joint types, and challenges, providing vital insights to automate and speed up future recycling efforts. ENSAM team in Maxima carefully disassembled an e-motor under laboratory conditions, a process documented step by step. In total, dozens of bolts were removed, hard-to-reach sockets were disconnected, and the rotor extracted with a hydraulic press.
  Manual disassembly in the lab provides crucial data for future automation and smarter motor design, making recovery of magnets and components more efficient. By understanding and improving these processes, projects like MAXIMA are paving the way toward motors that are easier to dismantle, recycle, and reuse as part of Europe’s shift to a true circular economy.

Unlocking the value of magnets for recycling starts with safe and efficient separation from electric motors. MAXIMA is driving innovation in demagnetization and joining techniques, crucial steps for enabling circularity at scale.

• Before recycling, magnets must first be demagnetized to ensure safe and easy removal.  This step is also crucial to prevent valuable magnets from ending up in the general ferrous scrap during the recycling process.  MAXIMA is exploring new processes for demagnetization that improve energy efficiency, reduce processing time, and lower equipment investment. These innovations aim to make magnet recycling safer, more cost-effective, and better suited for widespread industrial adoption.
• Innovative joining and assembly techniques are also in development to keep magnets secure during use, yet easy to recover when recycling, balancing performance and end-of-life access.
• Throughout the process, careful handling remains essential: magnet powders are highly reactive, and MAXIMA ensures that safety and quality standards can be maintained from lab to factory.

With these advances, MAXIMA helps to set the stage for scalable, circular strategies in e-mobility and clean tech.

Advancing rare earth magnet recycling is more than just reusing materials. MAXIMA’s team MAXIMA’s team is scaling up hydrogen-based PM recycling and applying optimized heat treatment (GBD) to match the virgin magnets’ performance while using minimal amounts of scarce, expensive elements. Steps such as devarnishing, jet milling, and careful quality assessment complete the short-loop recycling and can be upscaled to the real-world application.

By pairing these methods  and ongoing process optimization, MAXIMA is removing obstacles to industrial-scale circularity, making magnet separation easier and raising the bar for green mobility. Each batch is assessed for both technical performance and environmental impact. The journey continues as MAXIMA refines, tests, and prepares these innovations for broad adoption—helping Europe lead in e-mobility and circular economy innovation.