Abstract
There is an increasing demand for clean energy technologies such as wind turbines and electric vehicles, which generally require the use of high-performance critical rare earth permanent magnets (REPMs), e.g., neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets. However, the growing demand for REPMs is subject to substantial supply risk owing to the near monopolization of the rare earth element supply and processing by China. One approach to lessen this risk is to recover magnet waste from processing and used magnets from end-of-life products. These recovered magnet materials may be used to produce bonded magnets via injection molding (IM). Another processing alternative that has recently been developed is big-area additive manufacturing (BAAM), a fused deposition modeling that produces magnets with comparable or even better performance than IM. Owing to the nascency of BAAM, the economic feasibility of this method at an industrial scale is still unknown. This paper provides a techno-economic assessment of BAAM relative to IM. The results reveal that BAAM is profitable and has a better economic performance than that of IM.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 13274-13281 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 36 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 11 2023 |
Funding
This research was supported, in part, by the Critical Materials Institute, an Energy Innovation Hub funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office. Support for this research was also provided in part by the U.S. DOE, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Wind Energy Technologies Office Program, UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. DOE. We would like to thank Professor Fu Zhao and Sameer Kulkarni at Purdue University, Ikenna Nlebedim at Ames Laboratory, and Robert Fredette at USA Rare Earth for helping characterize the mass/energy flows and providing valuable insights. The U.S. government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan). This research was supported, in part, by the Critical Materials Institute, an Energy Innovation Hub funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office. Support for this research was also provided in part by the U.S. DOE, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Wind Energy Technologies Office Program, UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. DOE. We would like to thank Professor Fu Zhao and Sameer Kulkarni at Purdue University, Ikenna Nlebedim at Ames Laboratory, and Robert Fredette at USA Rare Earth for helping characterize the mass/energy flows and providing valuable insights. The U.S. government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Critical Materials Institute | |
| DOE Public Access Plan | |
| U.S. Government | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy | |
| Purdue University | |
| Wind Energy Technologies Office | DE-AC05-00OR22725 |
| Ames Laboratory | |
| Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office |
Keywords
- big area additive manufacturing (BAAM)
- bonded permanent magnets
- fused deposition modeling (FDM)
- neodymium−iron-boron (NdFeB)
- techno-economic analysis (TEA)
