How Permanent Magnets Are A Solution For Delivering Fusion Energy

By Author: JASON CHEN
Total Articles: 41
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A new way to make permanent magnets, which when produced have a negative environmental impact has been developed that has a much lower impact.

From alloys of rare earth metals most
Rare Earth Magnet are made, the processing and mining of which produces toxic by-products which can lead to ecological challenges around rare-earth mines and refineries.
As permanent magnets are common component of renewable energy there demand is drastically increasing in consumer electronics and electric vehicles.

University of Leeds scientists believe that in a new advanced material they have made a breakthrough, which may eventually replace rare-earth-based permanent magnets.

From a thin layer of cobalt the researchers have developed a hybrid film, which is naturally magnetic, covered with molecules of Buckminsterfullerene, a form of carbon.

The presence of the carbon can dramatically boost cobalt’s magnetic energy product, a measure of the strength of a magnet, by five times at low temperatures.

The ...
... increase in magnetic strength of
Permanent Magnet has been seen by research team at -195°C, but they hope by chemically manipulating the carbon molecules and at room temperature they will be able to get the same effect.

Co-principal investigator Dr Tim Moorsom said: “This is the first indication I have seen that a rare-earth-free magnet could compare to something like samarium cobalt, a rare-earth-based permanent magnet.
While at low temperatures we have only seen this effect thus far, I am hopeful that one day a hybrid magnetic material similar to this will replace rare earth permanent magnets, helping to mitigate the environmental damage they cause.

Although carbon has no magnetic property but the way the molecules bond to the cobalt surface causes a magnetic pinning effect, which even in strong opposing fields prevents the magnetism in the cobalt from changing direction. To the unusually high magnetic energy of the hybrid material this surface interaction is the key.

While it may be a long time before hybrid magnets or Magnetic Filter Rod are ready to be used in wind turbines or electric cars, there are other applications which are closer at hand.

Permanent magnets that are used on refrigerators could speed the development of fusion energy – the similar energy produced by the sun and stars.

In principle, the design and production of twisty fusion facilities called stellarators can be greatly simplified by such magnets, according to scientists at the Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) Department US and the Plasma Physics Max Planck Institute in Greifswald, Germany. PPPL founder Lyman Spitzer Jr. invented the stellarators in the early 1950s.

Most stellarators to produce magnetic fields that shape and control the plasma that fuels fusion reactions use a set of complex twisted coils that spiral like stripes on a candy cane. The hard part of these essential fields can be produced by Refrigerator-like permanent magnets, the researchers say, allowing simple, non-twisted coils to produce the remaining part in place of the complex coils.