Materials/Manufacturing

Capturing Rare Earth Material from Hard Disk Drives – At Scale by Industry Leaders 

Disk-drive leader Western Digital, along with Microsoft and others are collaborating in a rare earth element recovery and circular recycling program using environmentally friendly chemistry to help build up critical rare earth element reserves and […]

Materials/Manufacturing

Proterial Develops Heavy-Rare-Earth-Free Neo Sintered Magnet for EV Motors, Also New Soft Magnetic Material for Motor Cores  

Furthering its research and development into new magnetic materials, Japanese materials company Proterial has developed high-performance heavy-rare-earth-free neodymium sintered magnets with no use of heavy rare earth, and also confirmed the suitability of its Permendur soft magnetic material for motor core material for electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft – opening a pathway to apply it more widely for cores of other motors requiring small size, light weight and high torque.  […]

Materials/Manufacturing

Vulcan Elements Opens Pilot Plant for Producing Rare Earth Magnets; Consarc Strip-Casting Furnace Installed 

Bolstered by a $1.2 million award from the U.S. Department of Defense and now with the commissioning of a new strip casting furnace from Consarc, Vulcan Elements is building up operations at its new pilot magnet manufacturing plant in North Carolina. A key objective is to develop fresh alternatives for a secure, domestic supply chain for magnets used in critical Air Force systems. […]

News

NETL Patents New Process for Extracting Critical Resources from Coal Fly Ash at High Quantities

NETL researchers developed a new process for extracting economically and strategically vital rare earth elements (REE) and critical minerals (CM) from America’s coal fly ash at high quantities and offers several advantages over other available technologies. […]

e-Power Technology

Conifer Raises $20M to Commercialize Magnet-Agnostic Motors & e-Powertrains 

Conifer, a Silicon Valley startup, has secured $20 million in seed funding to commercialize its magnet-agnostic electric motors and powertrains that are coupled with a software-driven manufacturing approach. Founded by repeat entrepreneurs and ex-Apple Special Projects Group and Lucid engineers, the company has spent the last two years developing and validating its technology with customers. It announced the successful funding in April. […]

Electromagnetics

Magnetic Motion Tracking Brings New Capabilities to Medicine, Now Including Robotic Surgical Navigation 

Continued advancements in electromagnetic motion tracking, now firmly established as a valued surgical tool, are bringing new capabilities to a wide range of applications particularly in medicine, defense and research. At the heart of the evolving technology are tiny, powerful magnetic sensors that the systems focus upon, coupled with advanced electronics and software that track them. This article highlights some of the companies and their products that are driving the progress in medicine, notably Northern Digital, Polhemus, Radwave and TT Technologies – and, at the OEM level, Stereotaxis who with its robotically navigated surgical systems could be considered a champion adopter of the technology, devising new levels of increased magnetic functionality. […]