Abstract
Permanent magnets (PMs) produce magnetic fields and maintain the field even in the presence of an opposing magnetic field. Electrical machines using permanent magnets are more efficient than those without. Currently, all known strong magnets contain rare earth (RE) elements, and they are core components of a wide range of applications including electric vehicles and wind turbines. RE elements such as Nd and Dy have become critical materials due to the growing demand and constrained supply. Improving the manufacturing process is effective in mitigating the RE criticality issue by reducing waste and improving parts consistency. In this article, the state of the industry for PM is reviewed in detail considering both the technical and economic drivers. The importance of RE elements is discussed along with their economic importance to green energy. The conventional sintering and casting manufacturing processes for commercial magnets, including Nd-Fe-B, Sm-Co, Alnico, and ferrite, are described in detail.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | JOM |
| DOIs | |
| State | Accepted/In press - 2022 |
Funding
This work is supported by the Critical Materials Institute (CMI), an Energy Innovation Hub funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Manufacturing Office. Ames Laboratory is operated for the US Department of Energy by Iowa State University of Science and Technology under contract no. DE-AC02-07CH11358. Work at LLNL and ORNL was performed under contracts DE-AC52-07NA27344 and DE-AC05-00OR22725, respectively. The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US 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 US 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 ).
