The Forthcoming of Cerium Shakes the Permanent Magnet Industry

While Cerium was not linked to magnetism earlier, this rare earth element does have an influence on the permanent magnet industry. It is said that, it is higher than the influence of neodymium, dysprosium, samarium, or even terbium, which are used in rare earth magnets. This is because of a concept that we can call balancing. In other words, to reduce processing costs, miners should be able to sell rare earth that they mine and not just what is wanted the most. However, it is not possible always due to variations in demand and supply. Though interlinked, they’re independent factors and rarely meet!

The importance of demand-supply balance shouldn’t and can never be ignored, if the efforts should yield profits. Nowadays, dysprosium and neodymium business thrives, something that is not usual for the rare earth industry. Originally, lanthanum and cerium were considered important rare earth elements. When mining to get neodymium for magnet market such as circular magnets with holes, huge amounts of lanthanum and cerium are also got as by-products. This is now piling up and creating an imbalance in supply – demand.

Generally, there are two ways to restore balance. One is by creating demand by coming up with the newer applications and the other is reducing price. As for the reduction in pricing, the market always responds overwhelmingly well. Over the last fifty years, rare earth mining has moved to China. Even so, the growth and scope of rare earth elements were due to their applications. With an excess pile of Cerium accumulating, it is highly important to come up with new and innovative applications for this rare earth element. Recent attempts often mimicked rehash of older ideas and new uses are not yet identified. It is important to come up with many uses for Cerium, closely followed by lanthanum, to get rare earth elements market back on track.

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China intensifies economic instability of neodymium magnets in motors

Neodymium - one of the so-called rare earth metals - is an important element necessary for producing very strong permanent magnets. With a growing tendency for electrically powered automobiles magnet efficiency has become key to manufacturing high-powered electric motors. However, with China being responsible for 90% of the world’s production of neodymium and its strained economic relationship with Japan, the market situation has been quite unpredictable.

Up until the early 80s the strongest magnetic alloy had been samarium and cobalt. The development of neodymium magnets by General voice coil Motors provided a stronger, easier to manufacture, and more abundant alternative (in terms of natural deposits). With the current push to "go green" scientists and engineers are constantly concerned with solutions bringing both environmental advantages and convenient horsepower levels. With neodymium a 1kg adhesive permanent magnet is enough for an 80 horsepower engine - decent performance by today's standards. But with the prices growing tenfold in the wake of political instabilities there are alternatives being worked on.

In an attempt not to make itself dependent on China, Toyota started developing induction electric motors, which do not require permanent magnets - the source of the magnetic field are electromagnets. This solution, while less dependent on rare earth elements, has the serious drawback of requiring electricity to power the electromagnets in order to make the motor operational. This significantly reduces battery life and also makes the device itself bulkier.

With intensive research under way to develop strong permanent magnets (primarily by the ARPA-E program) there are prospects for a technological switch in the sector of electrically-powered vehicles. But given the current state of technology we are still very much dependent on neodymium and by extension on the political subtleties of commercial exchange.

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