Development of cost-effective nanocrystalline multi-component (Ce,La,Y)-Fe-B permanent magnetic alloys containing no critical rare earth elements of Dy, Tb, Pr and Nd

doi:10.1016/j.jmst.2020.11.027

Abstract

Abstract:

Here we first report the fully abundant rare earth (RE)-based nanocrystalline multi-component (Ce,La,Y)-Fe-B alloys containing no critical RE elements of Nd, Pr, Dy, and Tb by melt-spinning technique. The roles of La and Y substitutions for Ce have been fully understood. La plays a positive role on both thermal stability and room-temperature (RT) magnetic properties. The enhanced coercivity H_cj by partial substitution of La is attributed to the increases of anisotropy field H_A and the formation of continuously distributed grain boundaries resulting from the suppression of CeFe₂ phase. Although Y substitution is not benefit for H_cj, both remanent polarization J_r and thermal stability have been effectively improved since Y₂Fe₁₄B shows relatively high saturation magnetization M_s and a positive temperature coefficient of H_A over a certain temperature range. In addition, RE element segregation has been confirmed, La prefers to enter into the grain boundaries than Ce and Y prefers to remain in the 2:14:1 phase. Based on these understanding, a series of melt-spun (Ce,La,Y)-Fe-B alloys have been designed. A relatively good combination of magnetic properties with maximum energy product (BH)_max=7.4 MGOe, H_cj=400 kA/m, and J_r=0.63 T has been obtained in [(Ce_0.8La_0.2)_0.7Y_0.3]₁₇Fe₇₈B₆ alloy, together with high Curie temperature (T_c=488 K) and low temperature coefficients of remanence (α=-0.255 %/K) and coercivity (β=-0.246 %/K).

Key words: Nanocrystalline (La,Ce,Y)-Fe-B alloys, Permanent magnets, RE element segregation, Magnetic properties, Thermal stability

Xuefeng Liao, Jiasheng Zhang, Jiayi He, Wenbing Fan, Hongya Yu, Xichun Zhong, Zhongwu Liu. Development of cost-effective nanocrystalline multi-component (Ce,La,Y)-Fe-B permanent magnetic alloys containing no critical rare earth elements of Dy, Tb, Pr and Nd[J]. J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2021, 76: 215-221.

Figures/Tables 7

Fig. 1. XRD patterns (a), the enlarged patterns in the range of 40.5°-43.5° (b), the mass fraction (d) and lattice parameters of 1:2 phase (c) and 2:14:1 phase (e) for the S1-S5 samples.

Table 1 Mass fraction and lattice parameters of different phases for S1-S5 samples evaluated by Rietveld refinement.

Samples	Mass fraction (%)		Lattice parameters
	RE₂Fe₁₄B phase	REFe₂ phase	RE₂Fe₁₄B phase			REFe₂ phase
	RE₂Fe₁₄B phase	REFe₂ phase				a (Å)	c (Å)	c/a	a (Å)
S1	82.4	17.6	8.751	12.115	1.384	7.312
S2	91.8	8.2	8.756	12.140	1.386	7.333
S3	100	-	8.759	12.161	1.388	-
S4	100	-	8.757	12.111	1.383	-
S5	100	-	8.755	12.082	1.380	-

Fig. 2. Bright field TEM images for the S1-Ce17Fe78B6 (a, d), S2-(Ce0.9La0.1)17Fe78B6 (b) and S4-[(Ce0.8La0.2)0.7Y0.3]17Fe78B6 (c). The selected-area electron diffraction (SEAD) for the S1 (a) are shown in the (a) inset. The high-resolution TEM (HRTEM) images of grains I and II obtained from (d) for S1, grains III and IV obtained from (b) for S2, grain V and grain boundaries (GBs) VI obtained from (c) for S4, are shown in (j, l), (e) and (f, h), and the corresponding fast Fourier transformation (FFT) are shown in (k, m), (e) insets and (g, i), respectively. EDS line scanning of typical GB phase (marked by red line) in S2 (b) and S4 (c) are shown in (n) and (o), respectively.

Fig. 3. The second quadrant demagnetization curves (a), M-T curves (b) and magnetic properties (c) for the S1-S5 samples.

Fig. 4. Comparison of magnetic properties Hcj and (BH)max (a), temperature coefficient α and β (b), and Tc ((b) inset) for melt-spun (Ce,La,Y)17Fe78B6 alloys obtained in the current work with a variety of previously reported melt-spun Ce-based or Nd-based RE-Fe-B alloys.

Table 2 The current market prices of commonly RE used in Nd-Fe-B type magnets.

RE	Critical RE				Abundant RE
RE	Nd	Pr	Dy	Tb	Ce	La	Y
Price ($/kg)	57.32	91.71	340.34	841.03	4.08	4.16	32.96

Table 3 Comparison of the cost performance for melt-spun (Ce,La,Y)17Fe78B6 alloys obtained in the current work with commercial melt-spun magnetic powders.

Sample	Composition (wt.%)	Cost of RE ($/kg)	(BH)_max (MGOe)	Cost performance (MGOe kg/$)
S1	Ce_35.02Fe_64.03B_0.95	1.43	4.32	3.02
S3	Ce_28.03La_6.95Fe_64.07B_0.95	1.43	5.44	3.80
S4	Ce_20.4La_5.06Y_6.93Fe_66.62B_0.99	3.33	7.41	2.23
MQP-12-8HD	Nd_11.5Pr_3.8Ce_9.9Fe₇₂B_1.1Zr_1.7	10.48	12.00	1.15
MQP-A-10179-070	Nd₂₉Fe₇₀B₁	16.62	13.00	0.78
MQP-15-9HD	Nd_18.8Pr_5.3Fe_73.4B_1.1Zr_1.4	15.64	14.50	0.93
MQP-16-9HD	Nd_24.4Fe_73.1B_1.1Zr_1.4	13.99	15.50	1.11

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