Cyclic Materials is investing more than $82 million to develop a new rare earth recycling campus in McBee, South Carolina, strengthening domestic supply chains for critical materials used across automotive, defense, and advanced manufacturing industries.
The new campus will combine the company’s second U.S. Spoke facility with its largest Hub facility to date, initially capable of processing 2,000 tons of magnet material annually, with plans to scale operations to 6,000 tons per year as demand grows.
The integrated Spoke-and-Hub operation will deploy Cyclic Materials’ proprietary MagCycle and REEPure processes to recover Mixed Rare Earth Oxides (MREO) from end-of-life products that are typically discarded rather than recycled. These recovered materials play a vital role in producing electric and hybrid vehicles, advanced electronics, artificial intelligence infrastructure, and high-performance permanent magnets used in defense systems, wind turbines, and industrial manufacturing equipment.
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At launch, the McBee facility is expected to produce 600 tons of MREO annually, with a planned expansion to 1,800 tons per year to meet growing market demand. Once fully scaled, the facility’s output would supply rare earth elements equivalent to those required to manufacture approximately 6 million hybrid vehicle transmissions annually.
By establishing the campus in South Carolina, Cyclic Materials aims to accelerate the onshoring of critical rare earth production, particularly heavy rare earth elements that are essential to U.S. energy, defense, and technology sectors. The project reflects broader industry efforts to reduce reliance on overseas supply chains while improving sustainability through advanced recycling.
Originally reported by IEN Staff in Design and Development Today.
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