"kiwi, maybe U should spend a little more time on the recent ROMEO (Replacement and Original Magnet Engineering Options) report from the EU, its potential LT pricing impact, and figuring how the hell NTU are going to realise $684kg for Dy in a 52% mixed carbonate, from a reduction in grade to 0.63% TREO?
“The ROMEO project has two main objectives: i) to develop high coercivity Nd-Fe-B magnets with zero or drastically-reduced heavy-rare-earth (HRE) Dy or Tb content; ii) to find a new material for oriented dense magnets with properties intermediate between sintered ferrite and sintered Nd-Fe-B.”
” the amount of HRE needed to improve the coercivity by 30 % is reduced to 0.2 mol %. Values of Br = 1250 mT and HcJ = 1650 kA/m were achieved”
“For Goal 1 (zero or drastically-reduced Dy/Tb) it is expected that with the planned strategy of joining the successful method of electrophoretic deposition and the grain-boundary diffusion process, combined with an average grain size of the sintered magnets of around 2 μm, the foreseen objectives will be achieved.”
Fairly strong language I’d suggest: “foreseen objectives will be achieved”.
ROMEO Feb 15 provides a summary supporting Siemens (a project partner) recent statements re 0.7% Dy content in its D6 & 7 wind generator mags, a list of project partners and I also note Dr G Hatch as one external advisor. Wonder if Tracy can tempt Gareth just to expand a little on these developments?
Point is, what are the LT economic thresholds for Dy? EU & Japanese Govt’s, leading academics & industry groups seem hellbent on ensuring it is below many of the expectations expressed here."
(20min delay)