Research Projects

Rare earth elements are costly and India has to import them from China. Higher cost of rare earth elements will result in high cost of motors and other products made out of the rare earth magnets. As a result rare earth based magnets and products made out of them do not have good market penetrability. Therefore, development of cost effective rare earth free permanent magnets are very much called for. For developing rare earth free strong permanent magnet Zr-Co system was chosen primarily because of the high-anisotropy Zr-Co alloy structures forms in a rather broad composition region as compared to the equilibrium bulk phase diagrams and Zr-Co system exhibit high Curie temperature (Tc) of above 750 K and also exhibit a high energy product (BH)max (about 4.3-12.6 MGOe), which are comparable to those of alnico and RE containing materials. A lot of effort has been made to develop Zr-Co binary hard magnets. Relatively less efforts have been made to add other elements to the Zr-Co system to improve the magnetic properties. Further, many of them contain small quantity of rare earth elements. The proposed research aims at improving the magnetic performance by adding third (Ti/V/Nb for increasing volume fraction of Zr2Co11) and fourth (C for grain refinement) elements and optimizing melt spinning parameters. At the end of the project the optimum combination of composition-melt spinning parameter will be known for the in (Zr18Co82)100-xTx, (Zr18Co82)100-yBy, and (Zr18Co82)100-(x+y)TxBy alloys, where T = Ti, V, or Nb. The project also aims at deeper understanding of the role of Ti, V, Nb and B in altering the magnetic properties. Several cobalt-based hard magnetic phases offer significant promise, including: • Cobalt Nanowires: With record room-temperature coercivity of 10.3 kOe and a high energy product of 44 MGOe (350.2 kJ m−3), cobalt nanowires with high aspect ratios combine shape anisotropy and magnetocrystalline anisotropy, leading to exceptional magnetic performance. • Soft-Hard Nanocomposites: Compounds like HfCo7/FeCo display impressive (BH)max values ranging from 2.5 to 20.3 MGOe, making them strong contenders for rare-earth-free magnetic materials. This proposal aims to bridge that gap, contributing to the global pursuit of sustainable and efficient hard magnetic materials for advanced applications. This proposal centres on the development of rare-earth-free hard magnetic materials, focusing on cobalt- and manganese-based compounds to replace expensive rare-earth metals in permanent magnets. The aim is to create high-performance magnets with enhanced energy products and coercivity for applications in industries like electronics, automotive, and renewable energy.