Hard disk drive dismantlement for critical material recovery

A system for recovering rare earth materials from a plurality of dissimilar hard disk drives, the system comprising:

• an alignment station operable to position each of a plurality of dissimilar hard disk drives into a predetermined orientation, the alignment station including a vibratory bowl feeder;
• an identification and sorting station including an automated identification unit operable to scan an identifier associated with each of the plurality of dissimilar hard disk drives;
• a central controller having access to an inventory database, the central controller being operable to determine, for each of the plurality of dissimilar hard disk drives, whether a disassembly routine is available based on the output of the automated identification unit;
• a disassembly station operable to receive a first portion of the plurality of dissimilar hard disk drives from the identification and sorting station and including one or more disassembly robots adapted for fastener removal and hard disk drive disassembly according to an associated disassembly routine accessible to the central controller;
• and
• a metrology station adapted to receive a second portion of the plurality of dissimilar hard disk drives from the identification and sorting station for which a predetermined disassembly routine is not available to the central controller.

A method for recovering rare earth permanent magnets from a plurality of hard disk drives, the method comprising:

• positioning each of the plurality of hard disk drives along a primary conveyor path, the plurality of hard disk drives including at least two dissimilar hard disk drives;
• scanning an identifier associated with each of the plurality of hard disk drives and comparing each scanned identifier with identifiers stored to an inventory database;
• diverting a first portion of the plurality of hard disk drives to a disassembly station for fastener removal and hard disk drive disassembly according to a disassembly routine;
• and
• diverting a second portion of the plurality of hard disk drives to a metrology station for generating a metrology data collection record containing a location for each of a plurality of fasteners on multiple surfaces of the corresponding hard disk drive.