Additive Manufacturing of Amorphous Metal Soft Magnetic Composites

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Program:
OPEN 2021
Award:
$1,900,000
Location:
Stanford, California
Status:
ACTIVE
Project Term:
05/10/2022 - 05/09/2025

Technology Description:

The Stanford University team will additively manufacture amorphous metal SMCs with near-net shapes, reduced cost, reduced material waste, and tailored properties. SMCs are key to increasing energy density and efficiency of electric motors and enabling miniaturized electric vehicle chargers, transformers, and power generators. Scalable, solution-processed oxide-coated amorphous metal nanoparticles will be 3D-printed into rods and donut shapes (toroids) for magnetic measurements. SMC inductor performance will be tested within a calorimetric chamber for precise measurement of losses. If successful, the team’s efforts would result in magnetic cores with 10x lower core loss at frequencies of 500 kHz to 1 MHz at half the price of state of the art.

Potential Impact:

SMC technology vastly simplifies complex manufacturing steps, which would lead to cheaper, less expensive, and more powerful energy storage devices and power converters.

Security:

U.S. SMC development is critical for this country’s (1) leadership in significant emerging technologies, (2) achievement of supply chain security, and (3) reduced reliance on rare earth materials.

Environment:

The improved magnetic performance of the amorphous metal SMCs will result in smaller and lighter magnetic cores, which will lead to better mileage and less environmental impact from lightweighting.

Economy:

This project would significantly reduce the price of amorphous metal SMCs by dramatically improving their processability and reducing manufacturing time and material waste, resulting in economic benefits to areas such as transportation and power generation.

Contact

ARPA-E Program Director:
Dr. Philseok Kim
Project Contact:
Wendy Gu
Press and General Inquiries Email:
ARPA-E-Comms@hq.doe.gov
Project Contact Email:
xwgu@stanford.edu

Partners

Johns Hopkins University

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Release Date:
02/11/2021