Functional recycling of grain boundary diffusion processed Nd-Fe-B sintered magnets

Abstract

Sintered Nd-Fe-B magnets industrially produced employing the grain boundary diffusion process (GBD) were recycled by the so-called functional or short-loop recycling approach, based on hydrogen decrepitation (HD). Microstructural and magnetic differences between the original and the recycled materials were analyzed. The functional recycling of GBD magnets leads to the dissolution of the core (heavy rare earth lean) - shell (heavy rare earth rich) structure through the different heat treatment steps which include hydrogen decrepitation, sintering, and annealing. The recycled magnets show similar rectangular demagnetization curves with squareness of 96 %, and only a slightly decreased remanence of 5 % to 1.31 T, but a larger decrease in coercivity of 21 % to 1703 kA/m. A new GBD step using 1.5 wt.% Tb with a pure Tb-foil as diffusion source leads again to the formation of a core-shell structure with 0.5 µm thick Tb-shells which is similar to the microstructure of the original magnets prior to recycling. The coercivity of the recycled magnets is increased by 35 % from 1315 kA/m to 1780 kA/m at 50 °C and shows similar magnetic values as the original industrial magnets at 150 °C and 200 °C, respectively. The temperature coefficients for the remanence, α, and for the coercivity, β, can also be fully restored and even exceed the original values which leads to an improved temperature stability of the recycled magnets compared to the original magnets.