SBIR Phase I: Nanostructured High-Strength Magnet for Automotive Applications

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种改进的永磁体，这将使汽车应用中的成本降低和/或车辆重量减轻。这种永磁产品将由钐钴磁性颗粒制成，该磁性颗粒被包裹在纳米级的铁或钴金属涂层中。使用这些纳米结构粉末制造的键合永磁体的能量产品将比单独使用钐钴的能量产品至少高出30%。这种性能的提高意味着相同的电机可以减少20%的磁性材料，从而节省成本，减轻重量，并减少关键稀土元素钐的使用。此外，紧凑的高性能永磁体将帮助美国减少石油消耗和温室气体排放，而不会对车辆性能产生不利影响。这个第一阶段研究项目的技术目标是验证通过在市售的钐钴颗粒上涂上纳米级铁或钴壳来获得高能产品纳米结构永磁粉末的可行性。纳米结构的永磁粉末由微米级的硬磁芯颗粒和纳米级的软磁壳组成，有望取代高能产品稀土永磁体。然而，由于难以处理和涂覆超细粉末，同时保持清洁的核壳界面，这些材料的商业化生产已被证明是有问题的。在这个一期项目中，磁性纳米结构粉末将采用粉末封装技术，在超洁净的大气控制环境下，在微米级金属芯颗粒上生产纳米级金属壳层。使用这些粉末，将制造和评估概念验证结合永磁体在使用结合钐钴或钕铁硼磁铁的简单电机中的潜在用途。利用这种颗粒封装技术生产的高性能磁核壳粉末将展示实现低稀土含量高能产品永磁体的可能性，并为这些材料的商业规模生产奠定基础。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is to develop an improved permanent magnet that will allow cost reduction and/or vehicle weight reduction in automotive applications. This permanent magnet product will be fabricated from samarium cobalt magnetic particles that are encapsulated with a nanometer scale coating of iron or cobalt metal. Bonded permanent magnets manufactured using these nanostructured powders will have energy products at least 30% greater than samarium cobalt alone. This increase in performance means that the same motor can use 20% less magnetic material resulting in cost savings, weight savings, and reduction in the use of the critical rare earth element samarium. In addition, compact high-performance permanent magnets will help the United States reduce petroleum consumption and greenhouse gas emission with no adverse effect on vehicle performance.The technical objective in this Phase I research project is to validate the feasibility of achieving a high energy product nanostructured permanent magnet powder by coating commercially available samarium cobalt particles with nanometer-scale shells of iron or cobalt. Nanostructured permanent magnet powders, comprised of micron-size hard magnetic core particles surrounded by nanometer-scale soft magnetic shells, show promise as a replacement for high energy product rare earth permanent magnets. Commercial production of these materials, however, has proved problematic due to the difficulty of handling and coating ultrafine powders while maintaining clean core-shell interfaces. In this Phase I project, magnetic nanostructured powders will be fabricated using powder encapsulation technology has been shown to enable the production of nanometer-scale metallic shell layers on micron-sized metallic core particles in an ultra-clean atmosphere controlled environment. Using these powders, proof-of-concept bonded permanent magnets will be manufactured and evaluated for potential use in simple motors that utilize bonded samarium cobalt or neodymium iron boron magnets. High performance magnetic core-shell powders produced with this particle encapsulation technology will demonstrate the possibility of achieving reduced rare-earth-content high energy product permanent magnets and lay the foundation for commercial-scale production of these materials.