Update: Niron Magnetics brings rare earth-free magnets to US market

An example of a circular iron nitride magnet produced by Niron Magnetics. (Niron Magnetics)

Niron Magnetics, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has “developed and commercialised the first rare earth-free magnet for use in applications across automotive, defence, industrial, [and] consumer [applications], fully decoupling from reliance on foreign supply chains”, Tom Grainger, commercial vice-president for Niron Magnetics, told Janes on 4 February.

The company is a product of the US Department of Energy (DoE) research grants through the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Rare Earth Alternatives in Critical Technologies (REACT) programme. It was spun out in 2013, initially focusing on research and development because “magnetic materials is a place where there are many interesting ideas and very few of them make it through”, he said.

After its establishment, Niron refined its material and process to meet US government strategic objectives, including through projects with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and DoE's Vehicle Technology Office, Grainger added.

In addition, the Niron has benefited from more than USD300 million of private capital, “including backing by globally leading customers of magnets”, he said, highlighting “Stellantis, Allison Transmission, General Motors, Samsung, [and] Magna”.

“We've grown from research project beginnings to being 150 employees delivering magnets today out of our pilot manufacturing facility,” Grainger said.

Complementary capability

As the West moves to reduce dependency on China for magnets, “Niron's rare earth-free iron nitride magnets complement the parallel efforts in traditional rare earths”, he said.

“If you're the engineer at one of our customers, you don't want to have to use any material. When folks are designing iron nitride into their systems, they're choosing that from the option set today. We want to make sure there's always that choice,” Grainger said.