Molycorp Inc., the Western hemisphere’s only producer of rare-earth oxides, has entered into a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the US Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory. The Molycorp-Ames Laboratory effort will focus on developing new methods to create commercial-grade rare-earth permanent magnets.
The collaboration combines Ames Laboratory’s more than 60 years of experience in the critical materials science field with Molycorp’s more than 58 years of experience in developing and commercializing innovative rare earth processing technologies.
Ames Laboratory scientists will investigate several compositions of rare earth materials and processing techniques with the goal of making permanent rare earth magnets with properties comparable to currently available neodymium-iron-boron magnets. The material combinations studied will correspond with the relative concentrations of rare earth elements in Molycorp’s Mountain Pass mine, using techniques that are more cost effective and leave a smaller environmental footprint than current methods.
It is my hope that this cooperative agreement will lead to breakthroughs in rare-earth material manufacturing that can advance the state of the art in rare-earth magnet design and manufacture as well as strengthen our nation’s productive capacity of these and other critical rare-earth materials.
—Mark Smith, president and chief executive officer of Molycorp Inc.
Karl Gschneidner Jr., Vitalij Pecharsky, an Ames Laboratory senior scientist, and Dr. John Burba, Molycorp’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, will serve as principle investigators on the project.