New products and methods related to aluminum scrap recycling are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes (a) adding a feedstock to an aluminum purification cell, (b) purifying the feedstock, thereby producing a purified aluminum stream and a raffinate stream, (c) separating components of the raffinate stream, thereby producing at least a first byproduct stream and a second byproduct stream, and (d) mixing at least a portion of the first byproduct stream with at least a portion of the purified aluminum from the purified aluminum stream to produce an aluminum alloy product.

A method for collecting a heavy rare earth element from a molten salt electrolysis residue and recycling the heavy rare earth element that includes mixing coarse particles of the molten salt electrolysis residue with a fluorinating material followed by firing to fluorinate the coarse particles, pulverizing the fluorinated coarse particles to obtain a powder, and mixing the powder with R, an R-M alloy, or an R-M-B alloy, where R is a rare earth element selected from Y, La, Ce, Nd, Pr, Sm, Gd, Dy, Tb, and Ho, M is a transition metal such as Fe or Co, and B is boron, heating and melting the mixture, separating a molten alloy from slag, and selectively extracting the heavy rare earth element into the molten alloy. The method can efficiently recycle a heavy rare earth element in an alloy form, useful for recycling a rare earth magnet.

A method for collecting a heavy rare earth element from a molten salt electrolysis residue and recycling the heavy rare earth element that includes mixing coarse particles of the molten salt electrolysis residue with a fluorinating material followed by firing to fluorinate the coarse particles, pulverizing the fluorinated coarse particles to obtain a powder, and mixing the powder with R, an R-M alloy, or an R-M-B alloy, where R is a rare earth element selected from Y, La, Ce, Nd, Pr, Sm, Gd, Dy, Tb, and Ho, M is a transition metal such as Fe or Co, and B is boron, heating and melting the mixture, separating a molten alloy from slag, and selectively extracting the heavy rare earth element into the molten alloy. The method can efficiently recycle a heavy rare earth element in an alloy form, useful for recycling a rare earth magnet.

A process for recovery of rare-earth metals from magnet scrap includes leaching a rare-earth metal containing magnet scrap with halogen acids to form an aqueous leachate solution that includes rare-earth metal halides, at least partially dehydrating the aqueous leachate solution to form a dehydrated or partially dehydrated rare-earth metal halide feedstock, and electrolyzing the dehydrated or partially dehydrated rare-earth metal halide feedstock by molten salt electrolysis to form rare-earth metal and halogen(s).

A process for recovery of rare-earth metals from magnet scrap includes leaching a rare-earth metal containing magnet scrap with halogen acids to form an aqueous leachate solution that includes rare-earth metal halides, at least partially dehydrating the aqueous leachate solution to form a dehydrated or partially dehydrated rare-earth metal halide feedstock, and electrolyzing the dehydrated or partially dehydrated rare-earth metal halide feedstock by molten salt electrolysis to form rare-earth metal and halogen(s).