By Gary S. Vasilash

The rare earth elements—of which there are 17, and since there are 118 elements on the Periodic Table, that number of rare earth elements is certainly not rare—are of increasing interest with the growth of electric vehicles.

EV motors use permanent magnets and permanent magnets are made with elements including neodymium and dysprosium.

There are at least a couple issues related to rare earths:

1. They may be mined in places that are socially and politically unstable
2. While there are things like neodymium found in the U.S., much of the processing capacity for the rare earths is located in China, so for OEMs to be able to get the full federal tax credit for EVs, sourcing from China is a no-go

Niron Magnetics, based in Minnesota, has developed what it claims are “the world’s first high-performance, rare earth-free permanent magnets” is drawing investments from automotive companies like, well, magnets draw iron filings.

It has obtained investments from GM Ventures, Stellantis Ventures, Volvo Cars Tech Fund, and most recently Allison Ventures (the venture capital arm of Allison Transmission) and automotive supplier Magna.

To produce its “Clean Earth Magnet,” which is based on iron nitride—a combination of iron and nitrogen, of which there is an abundance in the world—it uses nanomaterial engineering to carefully manipulate the crystals in the iron nitride.

According to Niron, the magnets provide such high magnetization that it is possible to design EV motors that use 15 to 30% less magnetic material, which can mean smaller, more efficient motors.

Smaller, lighter motors can then have a knock-on effect of reducing the size and mass of other elements in the EV.

So this is a win on many fronts, from economic to performance.