Tuurny and Sluicebox.ai completed a joint run of automated recovery and traceable processing of copper and neodymium rare-earth magnets from end-of-life electronics and data center hardware.
This exercise demonstrates that critical materials can be recovered from U.S. electronic waste, with a digital chain-of-custody record linking the recovered output to its original intake lot and processing history.
"For defense and sensitive industries, the origin of a component is now just as critical as its function," says Sina Ghashghaei, CEO and founder of Tuurny. "Our vision system controls a custom-fabricated CNC router to surgically extract critical materials and components, while Sluicebox provides the digital infrastructure to document their origin and processing history. Together, we are turning domestic e-waste into a traceable source of strategic materials."
"Defense primes do not simply have a rare-earth sourcing problem in 2027. They have a proof problem," said Sarah Tang, president and founder of Sluicebox. "Tuurny built the robotic system that makes domestic recovery more scalable. We built the supply-chain infrastructure that makes the resulting material traceable. Neither half delivers the full solution alone."
Key takeaways:
· Tuurny conducted the run using retrofitted 3-axis tabletop CNC gantry systems equipped with custom end-effectors, computer vision and localized hardware manipulation. The systems mapped circuit boards and magnet assemblies in three dimensions and identified target components for extraction.
· The run used a hybrid automation model suited to the complexity of electronic waste. Copper was stripped and recovered fully autonomously, while rare-earth magnet assemblies were removed through a semi-autonomous, human-in-the-loop workflow guided by Tuurny's vision AI. This approach reduces dependence on manual teardown while maintaining human oversight where required for more complex extraction tasks.
· Sluicebox.ai instrumented the extraction workflow to establish a digital record for the material moving through the line. Each unit was identified, weighed and associated with its intake lot, processing steps and relevant operator information.
· Sluicebox Trace turns that data into an auditable record of where each lot came from, how much was recovered and how it was processed as material moves toward downstream refining. The record is held to the identity-preserved chain-of-custody model defined in ISO 22095 and is available to buyers and their auditors.
· Together, automated extraction makes recovery more scalable, while digital traceability helps establish the provenance needed for downstream commercial and compliance requirements.
