The future has come, and people have gradually approached a green and low-carbon society. Rare earth elements play an important role in wind power generation, new energy vehicles, intelligent robots, hydrogen utilization, energy-saving lighting, and exhaust purification.
Rare earth is a collective term for 17 metals, including yttrium, scandium, and 15 lanthanide elements. The drive motor is the core component of intelligent robots, and its joint activity is mainly achieved by the drive motor. Permanent magnet synchronous servo motors are the mainstream, requiring high power to mass ratio and torque inertia ratio, high starting torque, low inertia, and a wide and smooth speed range. High performance neodymium iron boron permanent magnets can make robot movement easier, faster, and more robust.
There are also many low-carbon applications of rare earths in the traditional automotive field, such as cooling glass, exhaust purification, and permanent magnet motors. For a long time, cerium (Ce) has been used as an additive in automotive glass, which not only prevents ultraviolet rays but also lowers the temperature inside the car, thereby saving electricity for air conditioning. Of course, the most important thing is exhaust gas purification. Currently, a large number of cerium rare earth exhaust gas purification agents are effectively preventing a large amount of vehicle exhaust gas from being discharged into the air. There are many applications of rare earths in low-carbon green technologies.
Rare earths are widely used because they have excellent thermoelectric, magnetic, and optical properties. The special electronic structure endows rare earth elements with rich and colorful properties, especially since rare earth elements have a 4f electron sublayer, sometimes also known as the “energy level”. The 4f electron sublayer not only has wonderful 7 energy levels, but also has two “energy level” protective covers of 5d and 6s on the periphery. These 7 energy levels are like diamond gourd dolls, diverse and exciting. The unpaired electrons on the seven energy levels not only rotate themselves, but also orbit around the nucleus, generating different magnetic moments and generating magnets with different axes. These micro magnetic fields are supported by two layers of protective covers, making them very magnetic. Scientists use the magnetism of rare earth metals to create high-performance magnets, abbreviated as “rare earth permanent magnets”. The mysterious properties of rare earths are still actively explored and discovered by scientists to this day.
Adhesive neodymium magnets have simple performance, low cost, small size, high accuracy, and stable magnetic field. They are mainly used in fields such as information technology, office automation, and consumer electronics. Hot pressed neodymium magnets have the advantages of high density, high orientation, good corrosion resistance, and high coercivity.
In the future, rare earths will play a more important role in the process of building low-carbon intelligence for humanity.
Source: Science Popularization China
Post time: Oct-24-2023