Hitachi Ltd. said it has developed machinery to harvest rare earth metals from discarded hard-disk drives and compressors as electronics makers seek to reduce their reliance on Chinese supply.
The machine can extract 100 rare earth magnets from hard-disk drives per hour, about eight times faster than manual labor, Tokyo-based Hitachi said in a statement on Monday. The company plans to get 10 percent of its rare-earth needs through recycling when the business begins operating in fiscal 2013, according to spokeswoman Satoko Yasunaga.
China produces 97 percent of the world's supply.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.