A UK tech firm has developed modular micro-refineries to extract and process rare earth elements from industrial waste at source, reducing reliance on China.

Silex World, a spin-out from the University of Leeds, has launched a modular micro-refinery that can recover and recycle rare earth elements and other metals locally from waste streams, instead of sending the waste away to large centralised refineries.

Rare earth elements feature in a vast array of high-tech and everyday products, from electronics and medical equipment to clean energy and defence systems. While these elements are primarily extracted through mining, there is also a growing market to extract these elements from end-of-life products or electronics waste and refine them so they can be reused.

Currently, China is a dominant player in this market, accounting for around 70% of global mining production and over 90% of global refining and processing capacity. As demand in rare earths is expected to grow while electrification efforts ramp up, this centralisation of capacity creates geopolitical exposure, transport inefficiencies and barriers to rapid regional scale-up.

Silex’s solution is to create compact, modular units that can be placed near recycling centres, industrial waste streams, ports and advanced manufacturing clusters. These units combine an alkali-based recovery process, a continuous low-energy conversion system and digital traceability architecture to recover rare earths at source. 

Michael Hodges, founder of Silex World, said: “The bottleneck in critical materials is no longer just mining, it is refining capacity. What we are building is deployable processing infrastructure that can operate closer to feedstock, manufacturing and strategic demand.

“The future of critical materials production is unlikely to be dominated by a handful of giant refineries. It will increasingly depend on distributed processing networks that are regional, traceable and resilient.”

The firm is currently advancing its first industrial roll-out in India. The objective is to validate its continuous modular processing technology under real-world conditions before targeting wider deployment in the US and Europe.

Silex World is initially concentrating on end-of-life NdFeB magnets (widely used in electric vehicles, wind turbines and electronics), industrial residues, manufacturing scrap and downstream industrial demand.

It believes its shift away from traditional refinery models towards distributed critical materials infrastructure will help support resilient supply chains and reduce dependence on imported refining capacity.

In September 2025, France launched Europe’s first rare earth magnet recycling and manufacturing pilot line, aiming to reduce reliance on Chinese imports. 

In October 2025, China said it will tighten export rules on rare earth minerals “in order to safeguard national security and interests”.