MINNEAPOLIS — From everyday electronics to industrial machines, permanent magnets are just about everywhere.
Most are made using rare-earth materials.
But a University of Minnesota Twin Cities professor, Jian-Ping Wang, says another kind of magnet could eliminate the need for mining rare materials because it's made of two widely available ones.
"Just iron and nitrogen, the most redundant materials on Earth," Wang said.
The Clean Earth Magnet is manufactured at Niron Magnetics, a company the professor founded in 2014 after he and a team developed a sample in the university's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. They even made the machines used to produce the sample, and students continue to work with the machines, producing more samples, today.
The Clean Earth Magnet is considered the first-of-its-kind in the world, and Time Magazine recently named it one of the best inventions of the year.
"It's good news for many people who are behind the research," Wang said.
It took more than 20 years of research, he says, starting in Singapore.
"I said, 'OK, I need to figure that out,'" Wang said, "But I don't have the resources to figure that out in Singapore. I moved to Minnesota and the University of Minnesota, so generous, gave me a big start package. I moved here as associate professor and it means they trust me to try to work on something new."
Since then, Niron Magnetics has worked to expand the low-cost and environmentally friendly magnet for things like audio speakers, electric vehicles and wind turbines. Last year, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded the company a $17.5-million grant.
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