Government Launches R&D for Recycling Hydrogen Cars into Future Resources

As the adoption of eco-friendly vehicles increases, the government is launching a national research and development (R&D) initiative aimed at repurposing waste hydrogen cars into future resources. The plan focuses on safely dismantling these vehicles to recover and recycle key components such as fuel cells, hydrogen storage tanks, and rare earth elements, establishing a circular economy system.

On June 8, the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment and the Korea Environmental Industry and Technology Institute announced the official start of the project to develop technology for reusing and recycling essential parts of waste hydrogen vehicles.

Hydrogen cars are recognized for their low carbon emissions, but they contain specialized components like high-pressure hydrogen storage tanks and fuel cell stacks, which require higher safety management and technical expertise during the dismantling process compared to conventional internal combustion engine vehicles.

In particular, fuel cell stacks and drive motors contain high-value minerals such as platinum and rare earth elements, highlighting the need for resource recovery and recycling rather than simple disposal. With the expected increase in the number of hydrogen vehicles reaching the end of their life, the government aims to proactively secure related technologies.

To this end, the ministry plans to invest a total of 40.8 billion won from 2026 to 2029 in developing circular utilization technologies for waste hydrogen vehicles.

The project will focus on three main areas. First, it will develop technology to safely remove residual hydrogen from storage tanks and assess the condition of fuel cell stacks, hydrogen storage tanks, and drive motors.

Additionally, the project aims to establish technology for recycling usable fuel cell stacks and hydrogen storage tanks into power generation systems, which can be utilized in construction sites, remote areas, and ships requiring power supply.

The development of technology for recovering key minerals will also be pursued. The government plans to create technology for the automatic disassembly of rare earth permanent magnets within electric and hydrogen vehicle drive motors, which have complex structures that make separation difficult. An environmentally friendly process will be established to extract high-purity rare earth elements from the recovered magnets.

With recent export controls on rare earth elements from China increasing uncertainty in the supply chain, the importance of utilizing waste vehicles as a new resource source, referred to as 'urban mining,' is growing. The government believes this initiative will help reduce reliance on foreign sources of rare earth elements and enhance resource security.

Kim Go-eung, director of the Resource Circulation Bureau at the Ministry of Climate, stated, "Waste hydrogen vehicles contain various key resources such as fuel cells and rare earth permanent magnets, making them a future resource. We will actively support the application of the research and development outcomes to the industrial field, leading to the reuse and recycling industry."