CMI Project 2.1.12: High-performance, critical-element-free permanent magnets

Vitalij Pecharsky at Ames Laboratory leads the CMI project "High-performance, critical-element-free permanent magnets"

Project Description: High performance permanent magnets (HPPMs) are critical enabling components in the next generation renewable energy technologies. Development HPPMs containing only earth-abundant elements, such as Fe and Ni is, therefore, required to ensure sustainability. Meteoritic evidence suggests that nearly equiatomic alloy of Fe and Ni crystallizing in a tetragonal (L10) structure exhibits large anisotropy field and supports (BH)max on the order of 40 MGOe, both are necessary for HPPMs. This project focuses upon novel mechanochemical approaches and non-conventional chemical routes, such as redox and metathesis reactions, to create metastable states that can promote chemical ordering, or directly synthesize nearly equiatomic ordered FeNi alloys.