Considering the special interest on developing electric motors for electric vehicles (cars, aircraft, drones, ships, etc), there is a great demand of permanent magnets, but free of limited and expensive rare-earth elements. Even though China has the largest rare earths deposit, yet limited, Chinese researchers make great efforts to find alternatives for decreasing or avoiding the use of rare earth elements.

     In our project we propose to look for correlations between material-processing-properties to improve the magnetic properties of MnBi, but without using rare earth elements as additions.

     Based on theoretical studies it was found that the magnetic field of MnBi can reach high values such as 5.6 T, but the measured magnetic field does not exceed 2 T. From this point of view, it is important to find new fabrication technologies or intelligent/useful additions which may allow to exceed the actual limits.

     The Romanian research team together with the Chinese one propose two approaches: (1) processing through unconventional sintering technology of Spark Plasma Sintering, through which very dense and nano-crystalline materials can be obtained, and (2) use of new additions.

2018-12-05