The status of Chinese permanent magnet industry and R&D activities

Abstract

It has been 15 years since China dominated the rare earth permanent magnet market in 2001. The annual output of sintered Nd-Fe-B magnets in China reached a new record of 126,300 tonnages in 2015 while the output in 2001 is only 6,500 tonnages. The average growth rate from 2001 to 2015 is about 23.5% though the output in 2012 suffers a deep drop due to the well known rare earth crisis in 2011. Currently, the RE magnet production capability in China seems to be over developed compared to actual requirements. Needless to say the oversupply situation implies a hard time for RE magnet manufacturers due to the fierce competition but maybe a good time for the whole industry. The motivation for a company to develop new technology and more competitive products with better performance and/or lower costs is greatly enhanced. The objective of this paper is to give a general picture of Chinese REPM industry and market including the output capability, the status of competition, the development of magnet application and the market trend. Some new research hot points potentially being applied, for example the Cerium magnet, will be introduced as well.

Nd2Fe14B permanent magnets substituted with non-critical light rare earth elements (Ce, La): A review

“…Cerium constitutes about 50 % of the REE content of minerals extracted from the site of Bayan Obo [9]. After separation, large amounts of unused Ce are currently stored which explains the lower price of Ce (5 $/Kg) compared to Nd (56 $/Kg in 2015).…”

“…After separation, large amounts of unused Ce are currently stored which explains the lower price of Ce (5 $/Kg) compared to Nd (56 $/Kg in 2015). Magnet industry in China is following a policy toward a more balanced use of REEs involving research activities that aim to substitute Nd in Nd-Fe-B permanent magnets by the more abundant and cheaper La, Ce and Y elements [9]. The large majority of the articles referenced in the Scopus database dealing with this topic have been published after 2012 (92 %), the share involving Chinese research groups represent 88 % of the total number of publications accepted in scientific journals over the same period.…”

Performance investigation on DCSFCL considering different magnetic materials

“…Rare earth permanent magnet (REPM) is widely used in many magnet related applications 16 and among various types of REPM, NdFeB type REPM has both large remanent magnetism value, large coercive force, stable performance and acceptable price, which is quite suitable for both simulation and further experiment. Hence, we choose NdFeB as our ideal PM material and its B-H curve is shown in Fig.…”

Production of Mn-Ga Magnets

“…Nowadays, high-performance rare-earth magnets (Nd-Fe-B magnets) are applied to various advanced devices, including hard disk drives, electric vehicles, and medical equipment [1][2][3]. Because regulations on internal combustion engines have been enacted or proposed in many countries, the production of electric vehicles with high-performance rare-earth magnet motors has significantly increased [4]. Under such circumstances, the continuously growing demand for rare-earth elements, which constitute an integral part of high-performance rare-earth magnets, has raised severe concerns due to their prices and availability, together with the hazardous nature of the mining and smelting of such elements [5][6][7][8][9][10].…”