Preliminary Program
more sessions coming soon...

Helena will provide a full-scale picture and analysis of the domestic and global investment climate surrounding the clean energy transition. His presentation will focus on U.S. government investments in critical materials, private domestic supply chain investments, and how the U.S. Government is addressing critical material supply chain shortfalls from both the domestic and international allies perspectives. Mr. Bhabhrawala will also highlight other global efforts to mitigate energy sector industrial base supply chain vulnerabilities.

Moderator: Jeff Whalen, Founder & Director, MagCorp

Panelists:
Chris Rainone, Global Supply Chain SME for Critical Materials & Supply Chain, Lockheed Martin
David Miller, President, Magnetic Instrumentation
Helena Khazdozian, Senior Technology Manager, Advanced Materials & Manufacturing Technologies Office, U.S. Department of Energy

This panel discussion will focus on both government and industry efforts to develop a robust North American supply chain of permanent magnets to support the energy sector industrial base (ESIB). Rare earth magnets, such as sintered neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets, are especially important to the ESIB as they are critical components of traction motors in electric vehicles and direct drive generators in offshore wind turbines. Yet, nearly all supply chain stages of sintered NeFeB magnets are concentrated in China, posing a potential vulnerability for ESIB supply chains required to meet climate goals.

Moderator: Braeton J. Smith, Argonne National Laboratory

Panelists:
Helena Khazdozian, Advanced Manufacturing & Materials Technology Office, U.S. Department of Energy
Salim Bhabhrawala, Critical Materials Program Manager, Office of Manufacturing & Energy Supply Chains, U.S. Department of Energy
Alan Lund, MP Materials
Frank Johnson, Chief Technology Officer, Niron Magnetics

Since 2013, the Department of Energy’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office has supported the Critical Materials Innovation Hub (CMI), which has a primary mission to “accelerate innovative scientific and technological solutions to develop resilient and secure supply chains for rare-earth metals and other materials critical to the success of clean energy technologies”. Among these activities have been the discovery and development of new permanent magnets to substitute for those used in the United States today, especially strong, anisotropic ones such as NdFeB and SmCo.

Magnet technology has played a pivotal role in revolutionizing design and performance across various industries. This panel will delve into the advancements, applications, and future trends in utilizing magnet technology in motors, consumer, medical and other industries. Experts and industry leaders will explore the latest breakthroughs in magnet materials, magnetization techniques, and designs that enable higher efficiency, power density, and reliability.

The objective of this panel is to provide valuable insights into the transformative potential of magnet technology and inspire discussions on the path forward for its widespread implementation in various industries.

Renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, and hydro, are becoming increasingly critical in the global transition towards a sustainable future. Magnet technology plays a crucial role in enhancing the performance and efficiency of renewable energy systems. This panel will explore the applications, advancements, and future prospects of magnet technology in renewable energies.

Through insightful discussions and case studies, this panel aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the transformative potential of magnet technology in advancing the efficiency, reliability, and sustainability of renewable energy systems. Attendees will gain valuable insights into the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities in harnessing magnet technology for a cleaner and more sustainable energy future.

Recycling magnet and critical materials has become a pressing necessity in our quest for sustainable resource management. This panel will bring together experts, researchers, and industry leaders to explore the latest developments, challenges, and opportunities in recycling essential materials, including rare earth elements and other critical resources used in magnets and various high-tech applications.

The panelists will discuss cutting-edge recycling technologies and processes that enable the recovery and reuse of valuable materials from end-of-life products and waste streams. They will highlight successful case studies and initiatives that demonstrate the economic and environmental benefits of recycling these critical materials.

This presentation commences with an introduction to Litz wire by Mr. Benjamin Braggins. He will explore various types of Litz wire, discuss VDE and UL certifications, cover coating options such as serving and taping, and provide valuable insights into the best design practices for electric motors and magnetic components. Mr. Rajasekhara will continue highlighting the main obstacles in winding and welding processes that involve litz wire and how they can be overcome. From how to control tension to get perfect layering despite the variable morphology of the wire, how to avoid wire untwisting, up to how to get clean and solid wire/terminal welding points with wire with high thermal class and composed of many tiny, twisted wires.

Battery-powered UAVs are revolutionizing today’s agriculture where they are used to spray fertilizers and more. These drones use motor drives that need to be lightweight and efficient to maximize working battery life and extend flight time between recharging. Wide-bandgap devices, and specifically Gallium Nitride (GaN) FETs, have demonstrated to improve BLDC motor drives in emobility and robotic applications. This paper will present the characteristics of GaN FETs that reduce weight and improve the motor drive system efficiency.

This presentation intends to delve into the subject of post-manufacturing degradation in the magnetic properties of stator cores. The analysis is based on evaluations carried out using Brockhaus measurement systems. Additionally, the presentation will explore the direct correlation between the deterioration in magnetic properties and the inferior performance of various types of electric motor topologies. This discussion can shed light on the importance of maintaining the quality of stator cores to ensure optimal electric motor performance.

Through the development of improved oxidation-resistant coating technology, Nichia has been able to create a SmFeN PPS resin-bonded magnet with the best long-term durability among rare-earth bonded magnets. Automotive applications, in particular, require PPS resin bonded magnets with superior reliability for long term usage. Nichia’s PPS SmFeN magnetic materials can achieve an irreversible flux loss of ≤3% in air at 150°C and aqueous solution at 120°C, making it suitable for harsh environment applications such as water pumps, oil pumps, and fuel pumps. Elevated conditions of greater than 300°C are required for PPS molding, during which magnetic powder can oxidize and degrade if not protected appropriately. Nichia will discuss the performance against currently used bonded Nd PPS materials through various comparisons.

ron Nitride permanent magnets have been recognized as a potential breakthrough for the industry. Based on the α”-Fe16N2 compound with high saturation magnetization (exceeding that of NdFeB) and a moderate magnetocrystalline anisotropy, the material pairs technical benefits – attractive magnetic performance and superior temperature stability to NdFeB – with the strategic benefit of being completely rare earth-free, relying instead on abundant commodity raw materials. Iron Nitride will act as an economical substitute for several grades of both sintered and bonded NdFeB magnets. Further, they offer significant advantages in terms of environmental footprint and recyclability.

Niron will address the background of the material, selections of the latest empirical data, implications for device design, and details on the process being taken with industry players to commercialize the first new permanent magnet in over 30 years.

In today’s automotive market, end users expect quality electric vehicles (EV) that meet or exceed the performance metrics of standard petroleum cars. To meet this expectation, EV designs are becoming increasingly complex with many system topology options. This presents both a challenge and a significant opportunity for EV designers. To gain a competitive edge in the market, innovative EV system designs require rapid validation and optimization with realistic component-level simulations. In this presentation, we focus on integrating fast and accurate motor simulations with system level EV designs. This methodology provides EV designers with solutions for rapid validation and optimization of motor designs that satisfy cutting-edge EV system specifications and corresponding design topologies. Furthermore, integrating system and component-level simulations is essential to enable a digital twin of a physical EV that can provide valuable information on motor performance within the EV operating environment. We expect that this integrated simulation approach will empower EV designers to rapidly deliver innovative and impactful EV system designs.

We present here our newly discovered crystallographic site substituted high-performance hexaferrites to rare-earth cobalt to neo magnets applicable in vehicle, wind turbine, magnetic cooling, and other household technologies.

The research is supported by the Critical Materials Institute, an Energy Innovation Hub funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office.

Electric motor control is at the heart of various industries, from automotive and manufacturing to energy efficiency and home automation. This panel session will bring together key stakeholders from the electric motor industry – motor manufacturers, chip makers, and analysts – to discuss the latest trends, innovations, and market dynamics that are shaping the future of electric motor control.

This presentation will cover the permanent magnets developed . .Application space for the various magnets and limitations of the magnets will be discussed. Domestic production of rare-earth metals hampered by environmental issues and possibility of production of metal alloy directly from the oxides will be presented.

This session offers a deep dive into the future of electric motor markets, technology, and design innovation. There are a number of exciting, yet complex, movements shaping up around this space. To start, the world will require an abundance of electric motors in just about every sector imaginable of a very different variety than conventional offerings.

Macro trends—such as mass electrification and automation—are pushing global demand for specialized electric motors to over a billion units annually in a sector valued at over $200 billion.

Analysts project this booming electric motor need will occur in a long list of verticals: HVAC equipment, e-mobility, consumer electronics, household appliances, robotics, medical devices, aerospace, defense, and unmanned vehicles.

Barely a decade after the 2011 Rare Earth crisis, the world entered a second black swan event in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic. It fueled supply chain disruptions and threats of regional strangulation of critical materials o Europe and the Americas. Yet, the demand for NdFeB materials continues to surge with the growth of: high-efficiency motors, mobile consumer electronics, Electric Vehicles and clean energy solutions. Solutions to curb the dependence on both Light Rare Earths and Heavy Rare Earths, has primarily driven the advancement of NdFeB materials and their performance.

We review a variety of parallel technological strides in material advancements by Yunsheng to optimize performance, reduce dependence on LRE and HRE, and enable costdown in magnet cost. We will investigate the latest production-ready technologies being used. These technology solutions include: grain refinement, ternary Rare Earth material substitution, HRE-free and low-HRE materials, and Grain Boundary Diffusion (GBD) technologies.

Can and will the old world come to the rescue of the new one without emasculating its own efforts to revive its domestic rare earth permanent magnet total supply chain?. The panel will address U.S efforts in diversifying the rare earth supply chain so far. The panel will specifically look at the progress on mining, sourcing, and fabricating critical metals' components for energy transition as the panelists represent key sectors of the REE value chain from upstream to downstream.

Moderator: Jack Lifton

Troy Hobbs, The Mosaic
Nick Myers, Phoenix Tailings
Nathaniel Sattler, Dexter Magnetics
Kevin Stoll, Critical Materials Recycling
Nabeel Mancheri, REIA

As a proud sponsor of both the Belgian Formula Student and the Belgian Innoptus Solar electric race teams, Magcam has effectively employed its magnetic field camera technology and application expertise to enhance the performance of the permanent magnet rotors used in the electric motors in their respective electric race cars.

The Formula Electric car is powered by four radial-flux motors, whereas the Innoptus Solar car operates with an axial-flux motor. In both scenarios, we started the optimization process by measuring a large quantity of individual magnets using our magnetic field camera scanner. From the resulting magnetic field maps, detailed quality parameters were extracted, including overall magnet strength, magnetization angle error and localized magnetic homogeneity. By ranking these magnets based on the derived quality parameters, we were able to select the highest quality magnets for rotor assembly. This first crucial step assures that only qualified magnets are used. The assembled rotors were subsequently measured by Magcam's advanced radial/axial-flux rotor scanner.

Since the fusion ignition breakthrough at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in late 2022,
billions of dollars have been funneled into achieving commercial fusion energy at scale and international
sprint has ensued to be the first company to achieve it. As a clean, limitless energy source, fusion could
solve the world’s energy problems and make today's climate change debate moot. Yet, to achieve
commercial fusion energy at scale, the world needs more of a critical component that is in short supply -
high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnetic wire. HTS magnetic tape is the only material that can
generate a strong enough magnetic field to achieve fusion energy in a device that is substantially smaller
than alternative technologies. This keynote talk will cover how the latest advancements in HTS magnets
are impacting the race for fusion energy and how one community aims to create an ecosystem to
support technological advancements in HTS magnets.

Join us for an in-depth exploration of the pivotal role electric motors play in driving the electrification of the automotive and aerospace industries. Discover the significant impact of electric motors and how EMWorks' FEA simulation software is transforming the landscape of motor design and analysis. This tool empowers engineers to conceptualize innovative designs, analyze performance, and refine them without the financial burden of prototypes and extensive testing.

The development of new measurement systems and techniques at NPL and other National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) is required to enable the extended characterisation of a range of magnetic materials at the operational conditions of use. In pursuit of sustainable and efficient motor drive systems and decarbonisation within the automotive and aerospace sectors, characterisation of these materials requires a robust metrology infrastructure. These magnetic capabilities give machine designers improved data confidence for optimising performance of motors and allow predictions for component and critical system reliability from design to end-of-life to be more accurate.

The Pulsed-Field Magnetometer (PFM) is internationally recognised for the complete characterization of modern magnetic materials. It is a method for generating a hysteresis graph similar to that of a permeameter.

Hirst recently launched its 8th generation of PFM, magnet characterization magnetometers.
Uniquely these include the Hirst proprietary Self De-magnetisation Field Function SDFF™ which accurately generates an open to closed circuit mapping (O2C™). This finally gives permeameter like measurements. With a maximum field of 10.5T (8356 kA/m / 105 kOe) even the most coercive materials and highest grades of NdFeB magnets and SmCo can be measured, while traditional permeameters cannot measure these high coercivity material due to pole piece saturation limitations. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has issued IEC TR62331, a draft to define the standard methodology for the characterization of permanent magnetic materials using the PFM technique.

Proper application of magnetic materials requires attention to several factors including benchmarking, material considerations, assembly techniques and design optimization. Using radial NdFeB ring magnets in permanent magnet motors provides a cost effective and simplified assembly method to improve motor performance while increasing production yields. This presentation will focus on design considerations and assembly methods using patented radial ring magnets that improve balance, while reducing noise, vibration and cogging torque.

Electric motor testing, inverter, variable-frequency drives and other electronic equipment generate lots of high energy frequency electromagnetic interference in the environment. There are quite a number of methods to help reduce and prevent electromagnetic interference and ensure a more accurate measurement.

This presentation will introduce various approaches and innovative techniques to minimizing EMC issues, improving measurement accuracy and safety in an electric power measurement resulting in faster, safer and more accurate powertrain efficiency measurements.

This paper focuses on designing a new wound-field flux-switching machine (WFFSM) that considers recycling its components once the machine's end of life (EoL) is reached, and the machine is scrapped. WFFSMs possess effective thermal management capability, fault tolerance, and improved flux-weakening through variable flux operation. WFFSMs have both field and armature windings in the stator, eliminating permanent magnets in the rotor for a simple and robust machine design (Fig.1). Both windings are wound around the stator yoke instead of the stator pole. The design is suggested with toroidal field and armature windings, which simplifies the access of the copper at the EoL. Besides easier winding extraction toward a recycling process, this kind of stator is relatively easy to manufacture with a higher fill factor. It also provides better cooling because the stator winding is directly exposed to the stator housing with a cooling jacket.