Wednesday, April 11, 2012

MagnaTech Completes Three Months of Research on Phase II Contract

MagnaTech has just completed its third month of effort to scale up a carburization process that they have developed to carburize parts to a depth of 1 mm (0.040 inches),to a hardness of > 60 HRC in less than 4 hours. This coming month they will be devoting their efforts to scaling up the process for production and fine tuning the process. MagnaTech is interested in talking with interested parties to exploit the new process commercially. Patents have been applied for and are in progress.
In addition, MagnaTech is now focusing its efforts on development of new permanent magnet alloys. The current alloy of interest is iron-neodymium-boron. However, there are several problems that limit the usage of this alloy for new applications, such as windmills for electrical power and electric automobiles. These include the technology residing mostly in the Far East, high cost for production of the magnets, and an undesirable reclamation process.
The current technology has limited the energy product to 65 MGO. However, recent work at the University of Minnesota indicates that iron-nitrogen magnets that will yield an energy product greater than 125 MGO can be developed. MagnaTech has ideas on how to make alloys that are also capable of improving the energy product and intends to partner with Arnold Engineering to develop these alloys. MagnaTech is currently in the process of preparing white papers for a BAA to the Air Force and to the DOE for funding to support an exploritory program to develop these alloys. Again, MagnaTech would be interested in discussing their ideas with interested parties.