Soroush Rahmati
Securing rare earth elements from end-of-life NdFeB magnets is crucial for establishing resilient supply chains and promoting sustainable materials management. This review synthesises recent advances in non-aqueous solvometallurgy, focusing on ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents, and molten salts, and highlights how deliberate solvent design and process integration can enhance recovery efficiency for both light and heavy REEs. Task-specific ionic liquids and acid-based deep eutectic solvents provide high separation factors, enabling integrated leaching and in situ separation through thermomorphic behaviour and controlled co-solvent addition, which mitigates viscosity. Molten salt systems offer complementary advantages by enabling rapid, high-yield dissolution and direct electrolytic production of metals or alloys, while developments in low-melting eutectics and fluorination roasting open lower-temperature pathways. Remaining technical barriers include solvent viscosity and moisture sensitivity, solvent cost and regeneration losses, energy intensity and heat management in high-temperature routes, handling of reactive gases, and corrosion in halogen-rich media. Critical data gaps persist in standardised energy and environmental metrics, as well as in techno-economic validation at the pilot scale. Future progress requires targeted solvent engineering, scalable regeneration schemes, corrosion-resistant materials, and integrated pilot-scale demonstrations, all supported by harmonised performance reporting. • Comprehensive review of solvometallurgical routes for REEs dissolution from NdFeB. • Comparison of ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents, and molten salt approaches. • Assesses benefits and trade offs of solvent based metallurgy approaches. • Future perspective of REEs recycling using non aqueous media.