US researchers aim to make powerful permanent magnets without rare earths.
The magnets will be transition metal carbide composites, made from metals that were used in magnetic materials, such as Alnico, before rare earths like samarium and neodymium came on the scene.
"Traditionally, minerals such as iron, nickel, cobalt are mined, melted together, and fabricated just like you would steel. Our process is a chemical process that's nano-based. The program, if successful, would result in the first commercially viable rare-earth free magnet in nearly 50 years," said inventor Dr Everett Carpenter of Virginia Commonwealth University.
According to Carpenter, the cost to produce this new magnetic material could be almost 50x cheaper than that for samarium cobalt magnets.
And if successful, it will reduce US dependence on China, where most of the worlds rare earths now come from.
The program, called REACT (Rare Earth Alternatives in Critical Technologies - scroll down), also includes teams at Northeastern University, the University of California-San Diego, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Moog Components, Arnold Magnetics Technologies and Bayer Technology Services.
The US Pacific Northwest National Lab is also working on manganese-based permanent magnets.
REACT has $31.6m from the US government's 'Advanced Research Project Agency - Energy'.
Last year, an iron nitride was shown to be highly magnetic.
