Niron Magnetics – powerful, rare earth-free permanent magnets | Hacker News Reader

Niron Magnetics – powerful, rare earth-free permanent magnets

nironmagnetics.com

131 pointstelotortium59 comments

2010: https://phys.org/news/2010-03-iron-nitrogen-compound-stronge...

Attributes work to "A group of materials physicists from Twin Cities, Minnesota, led by Jian-Ping Wang have found a material comprising 16 iron atoms and two of nitrogen is approximately 18% more magnetic than the predicted limit."

Wang is the CEO of Niron (Nitrogen-Iron)

Neodymium magnets can get to around 13,000 gauss. Digging about, Niron Magnetics is aiming for 9,000 gauss for the first generation at 15,000 gauss for the second generation, so these should be comparable.

Expanded temperature range. If they're even slightly less brittle than the notoriously frangible neodymium magnets, the second generation ought to clobber them.

Curious to know what, if any, drawbacks would exist.

> frangible

Learned a new word today!

"Fetter this malefactor to the jagged rocks In adamantine bonds infrangible." -- Prometheus Bound

If I've learned anything it's that there is always a tradeoff.

The question is whether the downside affects your application.

Discovered via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34356851. See also https://hackaday.com/2022/09/01/iron-nitrides-powerful-magne...

I'm not familiar with the production process but it seems like these could be made from nearly 100% recycled materials. That would be huge.

"Alternatively, iron oxide can be mixed with ammonium nitrate in a planetary ball mill; after a few days of milling at 600 rpm, the stainless steel balls decompose the ammonium nitrate into elemental nitrogen, which diffuses into the iron nanoparticles. The resulting α”-Fe16N2 is then separated by magnet and can be formed into solid shapes."

Literally just rust and fertilizer.

You do have to be very careful if you start piling up ammonium nitrate on an industrial scale:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ammonium_nitrate_disas...

I'm not sure I'd want to stand next to a ball mill grinding up ammonium nitrate, myself.

Plus the iron powder which I am pretty sure would start burning too...

Hmm... maybe. It would depend on what stage of the process. Sounds like it starts with iron oxide, which wouldn't burn per se. But it also sounds like the iron oxide is reduced to iron nanoparticles with dissolved nitrogen in the process. Those would probably burn well, and even if they didn't, you might wind up with a bunch of molten iron, thermite-style. That wouldn't be good, either.

I would imagine mining rare earths isn't exactly safe either, so it just needs to beat the safety record of that

In fairness, the big question about the current sourcing of rare-earth materials is whether it'll cause similar problems at some point. At least in this method the explosions mostly happen at the site of production, as opposed to, say, in the Taiwan Strait.

AN is actually quite stable. It clumps when wet, and people back in the day would use dynamite to break mounds of it apart. It takes the addition of fuel to make it slightly unstable, but even then it takes a a high explosive to trigger it. The Beruit explosion was only possible because they stored AN, car tires, and fireworks in one location. And even then, best estimates are that only 5% of the AN combusted.

> And even then, best estimates are that only 5% of the AN combusted.

You say that as though it is a good thing. The way I read it is that it could have been much, much worse if the conditions had been a bit different.

I think the parent's point is that it was stable enough that ~20x as much AN as exploded in Beruit survived being next to an enormous explosion and didn't itself go off. A convoluted argument, to be sure.

From a chemist's standpoint, pointing out the level of inefficiency is straightforward: it sucks compared to X at blowing stuff up! But from a safety engineering PoV ... robots. More robots.

The scariest bit to me is that if it detonates, the main product of that is nitrous oxide, which is rather… burny, and is its own source of oxygen.

Where does all the oxygen from the iron oxide and the nitrate go? How is the iron oxide reduced to iron during the milling?

Water most likely. NH4NO3 + FeO -> FeN + 4 H2O

That equation doesn't balance.

https://www.chemicalaid.com/tools/equationbalancer.php?equat...

The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified. Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.

I think that's a outdated / misconfigured SSL issue on your side; I'm seeing a valid chain: ISRG X1 -> Let's Encrypt R3 -> chemicalaid.com. Qualys SSL Labs gives it an A+ on both IPv4 [1] and IPv6 [2].

[1]: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.chemicala...

[2]: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.chemicala...

My high school chemistry is kind of rusty, so I'd like to be educated on how this works. I thought that O would bind more strongly to Fe than N. If so, then how would they get the N in the ammonium nitrate to displace the O?

Indeed from the physorg article illustration (cited up top) and their description, the N doesn't seem to form a molecular bond with F, but to diffuse into the iron crystal; with F binding to F and N being trapped but not bound. Fe16N2 is then a description of the crystal ratios, not a description of a molecule that can create a crystal.

My chemistry is prob as weak as yours though, so don't trust this too much.

Glad to see Rust being used here, it's a much safer choice than C.

Indeed, we wouldn't want magnets to become a potential source of global warming if they oxidize.

That too... I was thinking more CN (cyanide).

Off topic: I feel like magnets are the closest tangible thing to magic that exists in our universe.

Off topic and probably another rule: Insane Clown Posse agrees with you.

"Fuckin' magnets, how do they work?" From their hit single, "Miracles," on a Psychopathic Records. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_-agl0pOQfs

wait till you learn how the electric force and the magnetic force interact with each other such that an electric force causes a magnetic force in front of it, and then that new magnetic force then causes a new electric force in front of it, and like so they recursively sustain each other, such that they self-propagate over vast distances (unlike just a magnetic field which fades off as you get further away), and what do we call such an infinitely self-propagating electromagnetic wave? a photon

I've taken a few physics classes that covered such topics.

Just today I was winding some copper wire into a coil and then winding another wire into coils around every couple of loops of the original wire.

I don't know enough physics to predict what kind of magnet field running a current through the two coils would produce.

Probably create a black hole or something /s.

Seriously though, are there tools to stimulate magnetic induction fields in coils of wire?

That copper coil should do it on its own in some capacity. Drop a magnet or something through the coil. It should slow down passing through. Lenz's Law.

Not only are there tools for it, it's such a common problem that there's a Wikipedia list of just the solvers that are notable enough to have dedicated articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_EM_simulation_so...

Be warned that the learning curve tends to be steep if you don't have the background down. It's far simpler in most cases to approximate your circuits and say "Good enough" unless you're venturing into pretty wild territory (antennas and high frequency), so most of the offerings tend to be either academic, military, or high end commercially focused.

You've built a transformer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer

I have often wondered if something like that is the physical basis of momentum, or at least contributes to it such that apparent mass is incorrect for charged particles.

I notice WD is a partner, and while WD does need permanent magnets for actuation, many of the papers listed are for magentization of thin-film Fe16N2, so I wonder if they are looking at it as a recording material...

Interesting, but seems that this still has a long way to go. The highest maximum energy product they've been able to achieve is 20 MGOe in thin foils, compared to approx 40 for NdFeB. But, at least might work out being a cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative to SmCo.

https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/219403

The cost reductions alone would be staggering. Iron and nitrogen are incredibly cheap

I love that they generated their name the same way they manufacture their product, by mashing nitrogen and iron together.

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e5/03/de/0743b47...

now this is potentially revolutionary!

Can anyone share more about the raw input ingredients to make these?

The site says they're made from Iron Nitride

Iron and nitrogen. And the production methods look to be quite simple and scalable. I agree, this could be revolutionary.

https://hackaday.com/2022/09/01/iron-nitrides-powerful-magne...

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160141082A1/en

Well I can see the attraction

I might be getting old, but if there is no "buy now" button on the webpage, i just assume it's vaporware...

I'm guessing that they've spent the last 13 years figuring out a production process, then raising money to make them rather than selling out to another company.

With 39 million raised to date that's a lot of figuring.

https://www.google.com/search?q=niron+magnetics+funding

How much does a magnet factory cost? How big is the market? Does the market expand if the cost drops by a factor of 2? Of an order of magnitude?

I have no idea of the scale, except that rare earth element production appears to be about 250000 tonnes per year.

A typical magnet manufacturing installation is a few hundred K of Capital expense. You need to have a way to create blanks and then you need a way to magnetize the blanks. The usual method in a nutshell:

- combine the powdered raw materials in a die

- compress the powder to create a blank

- coat the blank to prevent oxidization

- magnetize the blank using a powerful electromagnetic field

- QA to ensure proper field strength and inspect for damage

I wonder what the hang-up here is.

I hear you. Batteries, magnets, and motors seem especially prone to this type of page where it constantly says "will enable", "will produce", and experts who "will help" this technology come to fruition.

At this point I consider it spam unless it says "has enabled", "have produced", or gives some already achieved numbers.

And windmills. And solar cell improvements.

Oh, and don't forget anything to do energy will have "use cases" that list everything we use electricity for, as-if we had never heard of lighting our homes with power delivered via a grid.

"You can even power your electric cars with <insert new tech name here>!"

No. Shit.

Like that recent post saying your tech stack isn't your product, your customers tech stack also isn't your product.

Same. I spent a minute or two clicking around, and, failing see the ability to purchase one or even get a price sheet from sales...

It has a bit of a penny-stock vibe. Just a feeling, I could be off base and I don't have any evidence, but I'd wait to get excited.

Can permanent magnets theoretically realize perpetual motion machines?

No. Magnetic fields are conservative and are not a source of energy.

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