The University of Delaware
has won a $4.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research
Projects Agency (ARPA-E) to lead a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research
project to develop the next generation of high-performance permanent magnets.
 | | Schematic representation of the bottom-up assembly concept to develop high-energy nanocomposite materials for next-generation magnets. Courtesy of George Hadjipanayis, pictured, of the UD Department of Physics and Astronomy. |
Stronger magnets are essential for increasing the energy efficiency of electronics,
automobiles, information technology, and communications systems in the 21st-century,
and for supporting the development of hybrid/electric vehicles, wind turbines,
environmentally friendly transportation systems, and new energy storage systems,
among other applications.
The UD project is one of 37 selected nationwide by the agency, collectively
totaling $151 million, which “have great potential to revolutionize the
U.S. energy sector,” according to Shane Kosinski, ARPA-E's acting deputy
director. They represent the first round of projects funded under ARPA-E, which
is receiving $400 million to deploy under the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act.
George Hadjipanayis, the Richard B. Murray Professor of Physics and chairperson
of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Delaware, is
the principal investigator on the project. He will coordinate a team of chemists,
material scientists, physicists, and engineers from the University of Delaware,
University of Nebraska, Northeastern University, and Virginia Commonwealth University;
the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University, in
Ames, Iowa; and the Electron Energy Corporation in Landisville, Pa.
According to Hadjipanayis, the strongest permanent magnets today are made from
an alloy of three elements: neodymium (Nd), iron (Fe), and boron (B). Hadjipanayis
was one of the three researchers who discovered the Nd-Fe-B magnets in the early
1980s.
In the new project, he and his team will be working to identify new materials
that will result in magnets twice as strong as those currently in existence.
“This is the first time that such a large concerted effort will be undertaken
in the U.S. on the development of high-energy magnets that involves the best
expertise available in our country on this type of materials,” Hadjipanayis
said.
An article in the Sept. 11, 2009, edition of the journal Science reported that
the demand for Nd-Fe-B magnets is growing at about 15 percent per year, for
use in products ranging from magnetic resonance imaging machines, to cell phones,
headphones, and even prototype magnetic refrigerators. Yet neodymium (Nd), which
is a member of the rare earth metals on the periodic table of the elements,
is growing increasingly scarce.
The UD-led team will explore three different routes over the three-year project,
Hadjipanayis said. The first route will be to discover new materials in tertiary
rare earth-transition metal-element X systems that have not yet been explored
due to synthesis difficulties such as vapor pressure, high reactivity, toxicity,
or their refractory nature. The second route will be to develop materials that
are free of rare earth metals and stabilized by the addition of small non-magnetic
atoms (Fe-Co-X); and the third route will be to use the bottom-up approach to
develop high-energy nanocomposite materials consisting of a uniform and nanoscale
mixture of high anisotropy hard (Nd-Fe-B) and high magnetization soft (Fe) magnetic
phases.
“We hope our efforts will provide the fundamental innovations and breakthroughs
which could have a major impact in re-establishing the United States as a leader
in the science, technology, and commercialization of this very important class
of materials,” Hadjipanayis said.
More than 3,600 concept papers were received in response to the first ARPA-E
solicitation, from which the U.S. Department of Energy requested 300 full applications
and ultimately selected 37 based on rigorous review and evaluation.
Funding for the projects is provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act (ARRA), also known as the federal stimulus package, which was enacted by
Congress earlier this year.
The listing of UD's federal stimulus-funded projects is available online on
UD's Stimulus Working Group Web site, which is updated every two weeks.
Posted October 27th, 2009
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