On September 14, 2021, LG Innotek (representative: Jeong Cheoldong) stated that it has successfully developed the world's strongest magnetic "environmental magnet" with the Chinese rare earth permanent magnet manufacturer HNXL Rare Earth Permanent Magnet Technology Corporation. This success has laid the foundation and created opportunities for LG Innotek to enter the global magnet market.
"Environmentally friendly magnets" minimize the use of highly rare and valuable heavy rare earths, and are necessary materials for vehicle motors, smart phone cameras, audio speakers, and wind generators. The attractive and repulsive force of the magnet provides power to the product that needs to be driven.
Compared with the traditional heavy rare earth usage, the rare earth usage of this product has been reduced by about 60%. This is exciting news for companies looking for innovative solutions due to insufficient supply of heavy rare earths, high prices, and pollution. In particular, most of South Korea's heavy rare earths must be imported from abroad. LG Innotek's successful development of "environmental protection magnets" is of great significance.
In addition, "Environmental Magnets" improve the performance of home appliances and vehicle steering motor magnets to the world's highest level of 14.8kG (kiloGauss, magnetic induction intensity unit). The industry believes that the technical performance limit of this magnet is 15kG, which is currently the performance of commercial products. Only 14.2~14.3kG.
The use of heavy rare earths in the "environmental magnet" is only 40% of the traditional use, which can effectively reduce the risk of production shutdown due to insufficient supply.
This has also attracted the attention of finished cars and vehicle parts companies that want to reduce the proportion of heavy rare earths. Because with the insufficient supply of heavy rare earths, the risk of production shutdown is gradually increasing. Only a few countries can produce heavy rare earths. Due to the recent expansion of the electric vehicle industry and increasing demand, there are endless cases of heavy rare earths becoming a "weapon" in diplomatic disputes, making supply more and more difficult.
"Environmentally friendly magnet" is suitable for vehicle steering motors, which can increase the power of the motor and reduce the size, which is beneficial to the manufacture of light vehicles. This is due to the characteristics of high-performance magnets, even if the size of the motor is small, high power can be achieved. This product is suitable for lightweight electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles that are in urgent need of weight reduction due to the increase in battery weight to increase the fuel consumption rate of electric vehicles. In addition, it not only reduces the size of the motor, but also reduces the cost of raw materials, such as copper, which has risen in price.
The installation of "environmental magnets" in smartphone cameras can increase the driving force of actuators (focusing accessories) to capture clear and vivid high-definition pixel photos and images.
Recently, as the configuration of smartphone cameras has been improved, the size and weight of lenses used to achieve high-definition pixels have continued to increase, and the performance requirements of actuator magnets have also been increased. In contrast, smartphones are becoming thinner and lighter in size, and there is an increasing demand for high-magnetism and small magnets.
Under the same size, the magnetic force of the "environmentally friendly magnet" is stronger, and the driving force of the actuator can be increased by about 10%. This means that the weight of the lens will not affect the fast and accurate focusing function.
From an ESG perspective, this product is also of great significance. It minimizes the pollution problems caused by the use of heavy rare earths. Large amounts of radioactive materials, heavy metals, toxic gases and acidic wastewater are produced during the production of heavy rare earths, which cause serious pollution to soil, rivers, and groundwater.
The shortage of rare metals in the supply chain of heavy rare earths can lead to insufficient supply of heavy rare earth magnets, which will have a fatal impact on domestic and foreign companies such as finished car companies. Its high price and environmental pollution are also problems that need to be overcome urgently.
To solve this problem, LG Innotek has formally invested in the research and development of “environmentally friendly magnets” that reduce heavy rare earths since 2017. In 2019, it has focused on efforts to ensure the highest performance in the industry. To this end, it is cooperating with Chinese companies that have "reducing heavy rare earth technology".
Heavy rare earths are necessary components to maintain magnetic force at high temperatures. Reducing heavy rare earths may cause the durability of magnets to decrease. Minimizing the use of heavy rare earths while improving the performance of magnets is a difficult problem.
While adding new compounds to reduce the use of heavy rare earths, the two companies have developed high-magnetic "environmentally friendly magnet" coating fluids in various products and temperature ranges, and developed new magnet materials suitable for coating fluids. Apply this coating liquid evenly to the magnet, heat and absorb it evenly, and get the world's highest performance "environmentally friendly magnet".
LG Innotek believes that traditional development methods will not be able to catch up with the technology of leading companies in the short term, so it introduces machine learning (computer learning data, technology that automatically determines and obtains results) simulation technology. This technology succeeded in cutting the development time that took at least two years in half.
LG Innotek uses machine learning to automate the entire process of optimizing process conditions such as the heavy rare earth content ratio of the "environmental friendly magnet" and the heat treatment temperature, which significantly reduces the number of experiments and time. In the past, researchers conducted hundreds of experiments in person, which took a long time and made many mistakes.
LG Innotek plans to apply “environmental magnets” to its products such as vehicle steering motors and smartphone actuators to strengthen its differentiated competitiveness. It also plans to actively expand its presence in global finished car and vehicle parts companies, and smartphone manufacturers. Activity. Not only that, it will also rapidly expand the applicable fields to air conditioners, refrigerators, drones, urban flying cars, generators, etc.
In addition, in order to consolidate its leading position in magnet technology, LG Innotek will also accelerate the development of “rare-earth-free magnets” that do not contain rare earths.