Newswise — Just as supply, access and environmental issues surrounding oil led to searches for alternatives to traditional energy efforts, similar issues surrounding naturally-magnetic materials are causing concerns about sustaining electric energy. Naturally-magnetic materials, known as rare-earth materials, make the most powerful and efficient magnets, and their size and reliability are well suited for electric motors that use their magnetic field as power. They are also used in cell phones and other electronics.
However it’s been estimated that increased usage of electric vehicles and other technologies could create a shortage of these minerals as early as 2015. More than 95 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth materials is said to be produced in China.
And, the extraction of rare earth minerals has created environmental concerns.
A scientist who directs a University of Alabama research center is leading a collaborative, international effort to find an alternative source material necessary to sustain the growing electric-energy movement.
Dr. Takao Suzuki, director of UA’s Center for Materials for Information Technology, or MINT, is leading an approximate $1.6 million effort by a consortium that includes 13 other UA researchers along with scientists in Germany, Japan and elsewhere in the U.S.
Under the new effort, the UA MINT researchers, along with those at the University of Delaware, the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research and the Technical University of Darmstadt, both in Germany; and the National Institute for Materials Science and TDK Corp., both in Japan, will seek to produce a permanent magnet that functions as well or better than rare-earth magnets but uses a more abundant manganese-based alloy.
The project seeks to develop both a thin-film magnet and a bulk magnet from the alternative materials.
The consortium’s effort is made possible through a recent award from the G8 Research Councils Initiative on Multilateral Research Funding. Funding for the project, whose research theme is “Materials Efficiency – A first step towards sustainable manufacturing,” was awarded in September, and the project is scheduled to continue through Sept. 2016.
When this overall initiative launched in 2010, it was the first time research organizations from across the G8 nations joined forces to address major global challenges, according to the initiatives’ web site.
The UA MINT Center’s share of the funding is $600,000, and it comes from the National Science Foundation. In addition to Suzuki, who is serving as the project’s leading principal investigator, other principal investigators include Drs. George Hadjipanayis, of the University of Delaware; Helmut Kronmüller, of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research; Oliver Gutfleisch, of Technical University of Darmstadt; Kazuhiro Hono, of the National Institute of Materials Science; and Kiyoyuki Masuzawa, TDK Corp.
The MINT Center has more than 40 faculty from seven departments at The University of Alabama. MINT is active in research and education through global professional partnerships, including industries, national laboratories and universities around the world.
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