Without cobalt there are no comparable substitutes for Dysprosium in permanent magnets ... and those that have followed these pages know there is a Cobalt shortage looming with its use in Lithium batteries
Dysprosium infiltration technology was developed by Japanese in the year 2010 when international rare earth price was rising sharply, it is a technology targeted to limit application of dysprosium in order to save cost. According to Japanese expert, there are two methods of reducing dysprosium amount added in NdFeB: crystal particle micronization and crystal boundary diffusion. Reduction of dysprosium application with crystal particle micronization method is expected to reach 1-2%, and reduction rate amount to 2-3% with crystal boundary diffusion method, reducing approximately 5% in total.
Many Chinese NdFeB enterprises are devoting themselves in introducing dysprosium infiltration technology into manufacturing process, several enterprises has achieved this combination while others are still struggling to breakthrough. According to introduction by experts, a choke point of this technology is that application is limited to small magnetic steel, and depth of dysprosium infiltration is rather shallow, as well as with high processing cost.
However, the Ames laboratory under the US Department of Energy released the news of a newly developed magnet material, which Is applicable to electric-motor for electric vehicle and wind turbine, in replacement of the expensive dysprosium with better performance and lower cost. This technology excels dysprosium infiltration technology and applicable to large NdFeB magnet steel.
This material is added with Cerium element and Cobalt element into NdFeB, in contrast with traditional sintered dysprosium metal, cerium and cobalt has the advantage of less cost and better magnetic performance. NdFeB material adding cerium and cobalt element performs well in magnetism under high temperature, with intrinsic coercivity maximum temperature T ≥ 453K (about 180 Celsius degree).
Intrinsic coercivity of cerium magnet, namely anti-demagnetization capacity of magnet material, significantly exceeds dysprosium magnet yet with at least 20%-40% cost reduction compared to the latter, discovered by Arjun Pathak from Ames laboratory and Mahmud Khan from the University of Miami after a series of experiment.
Researchers have attempted application of Cerium element in rare earth magnet yet failed, researchers indicate that the failure was caused by reduction of Curie temperature. The research group discovered later that adding cobalt and cerium element in replacement of dysprosium element will not cause magnetism loss.
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