Separation is crucial for recycling heavy metals, however, most of the reported processes focus on separating metals from non-metals. Here we propose a magnetic levitation (MagLev) configuration to separate heavy metals from metallic mixtures. The novel configuration is able to levitate substances with specific densities over 5.00 g/cm³, while the extant MagLev devices can only handle materials that have specific densities no more than 3.00 g/cm³. We mathematically model the proposed MagLev configuration and apply the approach to separate rare earth metals from fluorescent powders as well as indium contents from indium-tin oxide (ITO)/glass mixtures, mechanically processed liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and ITO powder. The results show that the recovery rates of ITO from ITO/glass mixtures are over 95%, the concentrations of indium in separated LCD shreds are doubled (from 912.0 ppm to 1873.1 ppm), and the purities of separated In₂O₃ from ITO powder are around 90%. The method is controllable and requires no energy or chemical inputs, and it thereby has tremendous prospects in heavy metal recycling.

分离对于回收重金属至关重要，然而，大多数报道的过程都集中在从非金属中分离金属。在这里，我们提出了一种磁悬浮 (MagLev) 配置来从金属混合物中分离重金属。新型配置能够悬浮比密度超过 5.00 g/cm ^{3 的物质}，而现有的 MagLev 设备只能处理比密度不超过 3.00 g/cm ^{3 的材料}. 我们对提议的 MagLev 配置进行数学建模，并应用该方法从荧光粉中分离稀土金属，以及从氧化铟锡 (ITO)/玻璃混合物、机械加工液晶显示器 (LCD) 和 ITO 粉末中分离铟含量。结果表明，ITO/玻璃混合物中ITO的回收率超过95%，分离的LCD碎片中的铟浓度增加了一倍（从912.0 ppm到1873.1 ppm），从ITO粉末中分离出的In ₂ O ₃的纯度大约是 90%。该方法可控，无需能源和化学品投入，在重金属回收方面具有广阔的前景。