Powder Metallurgy Review reports that the Critical Materials Innovation Hub (CMI Hub), a US Department of Energy Innovation Hub led by the US Department of Energy’s Ames National Laboratory and supported by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO), reports it has worked with industry to take a key step in how to process rare earth metals in the United States.
The capability to produce these metals will help the US create a supply chain for neodymium iron boron permanent magnets.
For the past two years, the CMI Hub Open Innovation Projects (OIP) brought together Terves LLC and Powdermet Inc, both based in Euclid, Ohio; Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Massachusetts; and Ames National Laboratory to produce and refine rare earth metals.
“OIP projects are led by industry to help the next generation of CMI Hub research and development align with industry needs. This project helps enable a domestic supply of rare earth metals for strong permanent magnets,” stated Thomas Lograsso, CMI Hub Director, Ames National Laboratory. “These metals are used in multiple industries. They had relied on midstream processing overseas. Through this work, we made ways to bring that to the United States.”
Andrew Sherman, Terves Chief Executive Officer, served as project lead. The research group started in spring 2021. Their two-year goal focused on using heat and metal to make high purity neodymium, necessary to enable a US supply chain for neodymium iron boron permanent magnets. The key was creating low-temperature, scalable processes using the Terves foundry to speed up the establishment of rare earth metal manufacturing in the United States.
See the full story: CMI Hub project takes key step to process rare earth metals in US