Lanthanum and Cerium going to rule the world
Toyota says they will be replacing up to half the neodymium in them with the more abundant, lower-cost rare earths lanthanum and cerium in Electric motor.
APPLICATIONS:
-
Power steering
-
Robots
-
House hold appliances
DIFFICULTIES IN NEODYMIUM:
-
Nd2Fe14B alloys have exceptionally high intrinsic magnetocrystalline anisotropy, making them very difficult to magnetise any direction other than their preferred one.
-
That originates specifically from neodymium’s unpaired electrons, and helps make the magnets coercive.
-
Meanwhile the large proportion of iron means that such alloys can be strongly magnetic.
-
cerium and lanthanum cost $5-$8/kg (£4-6), compared to $45-$70/kg for neodymium.
-
Neodymium has high coercivity.
PROPERTIES OF LANTHANUM AND CERIUM:
-
These elements are much more abundant than neodymium, but due to their lower intrinsic anisotropy direct replacement produces much less coercive alloy.
TOYOTA’S INNOVATION:
-
One of its innovations is making grains largely from Cerium and Lanthanum.
-
Grains size is reduced to increase Coercivity.