General Chat / Discussion, page-10279

Funding from the EU seams to be arriving , But not for IXR

HYPROMAG GMBH TO PARTICIPATE IN GROUNDBREAKING €8 MILLION GRANT FUNDED PROJECT: RE-ENGINEERING PERMANENT MAGNETS FOR THE GREEN TRANSITION (GREENE)

Highlights

· HyProMag GmbH is participating in the €8 million GREENE project (the "Project"), funded by the European Commission's Horizon Europe Programme, with 15 partners across industry and academia (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101129888)

· GREENE aims to push the boundaries of material science by re-engineering rare earth permanent magnets to become more resource-efficient, whilst offering significant improvements to magnetic performance

· As part of the Project, HyProMag GmbH will receive €350,125 to advance its proprietary NeoLeach technology, which is an environmentally friendly and energy efficient chemical process to further upgrade products from the Hydrogen Processing of Magnet Scrap ("HPMS") process being commercialised by HyProMag in Germany, UK and United States

The GREENE Project

Rare-earth element (REE) permanent magnets based on Neodymium Iron Boron (Nd-Fe-B) are vital components of high-tech products enabling a green energy future. They are highly valued due to their outstanding properties. They are complex materials consisting of multiple phases and their overall performance is determined by a high remanence, reflected in magnet strength, and a high intrinsic coercivity, making them resistant to demagnetization. Their maximum energy product is thus composed of both remanence and coercivity.

The need to operate at temperatures over 100 °C in applications such as traction motors in electric vehicles means that a high coercivity is usually prioritised over a high remanence, which negatively affects power output linked to remanence. In conventionally sintered magnets, NdFeB grains are microscopic and the regions between the grains are called grain boundaries. When exposed to a demagnetizing force, demagnetization begins at the grain interfaces with the grain-boundary phase before rapidly spreading, influencing the magnet's coercivity.

GREENE partners aim to push the boundaries of material science by developing Single-Grain Re-Engineered Nd- Fe-B permanent magnets with a new grain-boundary interface, thus allowing for a reduction of REE content. The new GREENE magnets are expected to be more resource-efficient, offering a roughly 20% increase in coercivity, 10% in remanence, and 20% in overall maximum energy product.

As a first step, novel grain boundaries and interfaces will be created using micromagnetic simulations and computational thermodynamics. Following an initial testing phase, the technology will then be applied to isolated grains from recycled and fresh streams with the intention of developing a new form of Nd-Fe-B magnet. By the end of the project, the magnet manufacturing system is intended to be set up in an actual operational setting.

To achieve this ambitious undertaking, 15 European partners with outstanding expertise in their respective fields have joined forces, including leading material scientists, magnet manufacturers and recyclers, lifecycle analysis experts as well as end user representatives. Several of them have already cooperated in predecessor projects like SUSMAGPRO, INSPIRES and REEsilience. The project is coordinated by the Slovenian Jožef Stefan Institute.

https://www.voxmarkets.co.uk/rns/announcement/89cf84e5-4843-46b9-a0a8-03ceb4c8008b/