Artificial Intelligence develops a new “emphasis” magnet without rare earth metals

From your computer to maglev trains, from power tools to MRI scanners, rare Earth permanent magnets are all around us. Modern life without them is difficult, so their importance cannot be overestimated. However, extracting the rare earth elements that make them is often laborious and energy consuming. Scientists have been looking for a better way – and thanks to a machine learning algorithm, they may have found it.

Nexus Materials Company, together with researchers at the Henry Royce Institute and the University of Sheffield, have developed MagNex. This is a permanent magnet that does not contain rare earth elements. MagNex is reportedly manufactured with materials that cost a fifth of regular permanent magnets. The new magnet also saw a 70 percent reduction in carbon emissions (in terms of kilograms of CO₂ per kilogram of material) compared to rare earth permanent magnets.

That in itself is pretty awesome, but there’s a broader reason why it’s exciting. The permanent magnets we have were developed from alloys of rare earth elements in the 1970s and 80s. The search for these materials with the right properties was a long, trial-and-error undertaking. MagNex development from design to testing was 200 times faster.

“We are really excited that our first interaction with Nexus Materials has yielded such an extremely positive result,” Professor Iain Todd FREng, professor of Metallurgy and Materials Processing at the University of Sheffield, said in a statement.

“Combining the Materials Nexus approach to using AI [artificial intelligence] for materials discovery and the world-class equipment we have for producing advanced alloys at the Henry Royce Institute here in Sheffield has allowed a new magnetic material to be developed at astonishing speed. This achievement shows the bright future of materials and manufacturing. The next generation of materials, unlocked through the power of AI, holds great promise for research, industry and our planet.”

The AI ​​system identifies and analyzes the composition of over 100 million possible connections that would have the right properties to be a permanent magnet, free of rare earth elements, and meet affordability and durability requirements. The potential of this approach for the creation of new materials is great.

“This is a ground-breaking breakthrough using innovative machine learning software and its development has been made possible by funding from Innovate UK,” said Bruce Adderley, Director of Make & Use – Net-Zero at Innovate UK. “This could have a significant future impact on our net zero ambitions, through renewable energy and low carbon transport, removing the need for rare earth elements in high performance permanent magnets.”

Computers have already helped tremendously by allowing us to find new substances. And it seems that thanks to machine learning algorithms, this and similar approaches are also being used in labs, such as the self-driving lab developed at the University of Toronto.