Dresden 2026 – scientific programme
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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 50: Bulk Materials: Soft and Hard Permanent Magnets
MA 50.9: Talk
Thursday, March 12, 2026, 17:00–17:15, POT/0151
Enabling Ce Substitution in Nd-Fe-B Magnets for Wind Turbines via the 2-Powder Method — •Chi-Chia Lin1,2, Konrad Opelt1, Abdullatif Durgun2, Imants Dirba2, and Oliver Gutfleisch2 — 1Fraunhofer IWKS, Hanau, Germany — 2TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
Wind turbines contain Nd-Fe-B magnets weighing up to several tonnes. As deployment accelerates, demand for Nd rises, increasing supply risk and cost. Ce substitution can reduce critical-RE usage but degrades performance due to inferior intrinsic properties of Ce2Fe14B, formation of detrimental phases, and microstructural degradation.
We present a 2-powder method (2PM) enabling substantial Ce substitution without geometry constraints. A coarser (Ce,Nd)-Fe-B main powder is blended with a finer Nd-Fe-B powder and conventionally sintered, producing a uniform core-shell structure in which Nd-enriched shells magnetically harden RE2Fe14B grain surfaces. Relative to single-powder processing at identical overall composition, 2PM boosts coercivity, remanence, and energy product by increasing local anisotropy fields at grain surfaces and optimizing grain-boundary chemistry. In addition, we introduce a hybrid segmented magnet that positions the 2PM Ce-substituted segment between Nd-Fe-B segments, extending local magnetic hardening to a bulk macroscopic effect and enhancing demagnetization resistance while concentrating Nd only where peak coercivity is required.
Together, 2PM and hybrid segmentation offer a scalable route to thrift Nd with abundant Ce toward wind-turbine performance targets.
Keywords: cerium; permanent magnets; grain boundary engineering; processing technology; Nd-Fe-B