Rosatom presents the concept of creating a complete chain of production of permanent rare-earth magnets in Russia

All-Russian strategic session Permanent Magnets: Technologies. Production. Application was held at the MISIS University of Science and Technology in Moscow. The event was organized by Rusatom Metal Tech LLC (an integrator of the Fuel Company of Rosatom State Corporation in the Metalurgy area) with the participation of the A.A. Baikov Institute of Metalurgy and Materials Science of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMET RAS), NITU MISIS and Science and Innovations JSC.

The event was attended by about 100 leading Russian specialists representing fundamental and academic science, manufacturing sector, authorities, as well as consumers of magnetic products. They discussed the existing opportunities and necessary steps to create a complete chain of production of permanent magnets based on rare-earth alloys in Russia, from the extraction of raw materials to the manufacture of magnets with high consumer characteristics.

It was noted that at present there are practically no full-cycle production facilities in Russia that would allow to produce magnetic products using Russian raw material sources. But to establish such a chain of REM magnet production, there are all the necessary resources. In particular, Rosatom State Corporation is competent in all key links, including: raw material extraction (projects of the Mining Division - ARMZ); research and development base (Science and Innovations JSC); and existing and future production facilities of the Fuel Company. Additionally, the vertical chain stability is ensured by cooperation with the leaders of the rare-metal industry, in particular, the Solikamsk Magnesium Plant.

“Technological sovereignty is not only and not so much the presence in the country of imported machines for the production of products but the control of the entire production chain from raw material extraction to the final product, as well as the entire chain from scientific development to industrial production. Following this design, strategic documents signed between Rosatom and the Russian Government are being implemented, including an agreement in the area of Technologies of New Materials and Substances. Within the framework of this area, REM magnets are the most important components in the Rare and Rare-Earth Metals track which acts as a link between mining processes and manufacturers of high-tech products. The growth of demand for magnets may become the crucial driver for the recovery of the Russian rare-earth metals industry,” Dmitry Ivanets, Deputy Director for Technological Development of Rosatom State Corporation, emphasized in his speech.

Andrey Andrianov, General Director of Rusatom Metal Tech LLC, said that according to calculations of the Russian market, demand for rare-earth magnets from 2021 to 2030 should grow threefold, from 1,045 tons to 3,400 tons. The key drivers include the growth of installed wind generation capacity (forecasted at 6-7 GW by 2035), as well as the production of Russian electric vehicles. A strategic Russian project in the field of REM magnets is Rosatom’s creation of a large-capacity permanent magnet production facility in the city of Glazov in the Udmurt Republic. “The goal of the project is to create production of rare-earth magnets of the neodymium-iron-boron system with a capacity of 1,000 tons by 2028 but this volume is not the ultimate for us, we believe that this is only the first step and the next stage we plan to expand production to 3,000 tons by 2030. This high-tech production using domestic raw materials will allow us to almost fully meet the needs of key industries in Russia for these products,” he said.

“Scientific research at Rosatom is aimed at creating magnets by replacing scarce rare-earth metals neodymium and praseodymium with more accessible and cheap lanthanum and cerium, obtaining magnets of complex shape with variable gradient properties using 3D printing, as well as developing technology for recycling waste magnetic materials. Cooperation between Rosatom, IMET RAS and UrFU has been established. We have already moved from scientific experiments to real applied results in record time. In just two years, we have obtained results that allow us to move to the creation of production facilities based on Russian technologies,” Alexey Dub, First Deputy General Director of Science and Innovations JSC, said.

The representatives of the Department of Metalurgy and Materials of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia, the Government of the Udmurt Republic, NovaWind JSC, OOO AmperMagnet, the Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin and other organizations also took part in the event and presented their reports.

One of the key results of the event was the signing of a memorandum between Rusatom Metal Tech LLC, NITU MISIS, IMET RAS and Science and Innovations JSC on the organization of International Conference Permanent Magnets: Technology. Production. Application to share experience between Russian and foreign specialists on the production of permanent rare-earth magnets. It is scheduled for September 2024.