DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory receives ARPA-E funding to research manganese-based permanent magnet
Friday, September 30, 2011
Richland, Washington --September 30,
2011-- PNNL materials scientist Jun Cui and
others will receive $2.3 million to develop a
replacement for rare earth magnets — commonly
used in wind turbines and electric vehicles —
based on an innovative nano-composite using
manganese-based alloys. Manganese composites
could potentially be twice as strong as current
state-of-the-art magnets at higher
temperatures, possibly eliminating the need for
a cooling system. Importantly, they are based
on inexpensive and abundant raw materials. The
team will develop stronger magnets by combining
high-performance supercomputer modeling with
experiments of various metal composite
formulations that do not contain rare-earth
materials. If developed successfully, these
composite magnets will reduce dependence on
expensive rare-earth material imports, and
reduce the cost and improve efficiency of green
technologies.
The U.S. Department of Energy was an exhibitor at the 2011 EDTA Conference
http://www.electricdrive.org
About Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is a Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory where interdisciplinary teams advance science and technology and deliver solutions to America's most intractable problems in energy, the environment and national security. PNNL employs 4,900 staff, has an annual budget of nearly $1.1 billion, and has been managed by Ohio-based Battelle since the lab's inception in 1965.
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