The REProMag project brings together industrial and academic partners across Europe to develop a new, more efficient manufacturing process for rare earth magnetic materials: the Shaping, Debinding and Sintering (SDS) process. The main outcomes of the project are to produce near net-shape magnetic parts with complex structures which are waste free across the whole manufacturing chain, with magnetic properties comparable to conventional processing/manufacturing methods.
The organisations involved in the project are:
- OBE Ohnmacht & Baumgaertner GmbH & Co. KG,
- Forschungs- und Technologietransfer GmbH,
- PT+A GmbH Powder Technologies + Additives,
- Hage Sondermaschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG,
- Lithoz GmbH,
- TEKS SARL,
- Siemens Aktiengesellschaft,
- Sennheiser Electronic GmbH @ Co. KG,
- The Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien),
- The University of Birmingham,
- The University of Leoben,
- The Jožef Stefan Institute,
- NPL Management Ltd,
- Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum.
The role of the University of Birmingham in this project is to separate NdFeB powder from electronic waste using the hydrogen decrepitation (HD) process and refine the powder for the SDS manufacturing by optimising particle size and shape.
In addition, Birmingham are responsible for developing a coating method for SDS manufactured RE magnets and performing magnetic characterisation measurements on the produced samples.
For further details of the work in the REProMag Project please contact:
Dr Allan Walton – a.walton@bham.ac.uk, 0121 414 5195 or
Dr Lydia Pickering – l.pickering.1@bham.ac.uk, 0121 414 3960