Development of sintered neodymium iron boron magnet industry in China

1 production capacity, production capacity and patent issues

Sintered NdFeB magnet industry in China in 1985 and start mass production, Ningbo konit Industry Co., Ltd. is China's first production of neodymium iron boron enterprises. In the past 20 years, China's neodymium iron boron magnet industry has made great progress, achieved the world's attention. The production center of the world's neodymium iron boron magnet has been transferred to China, mainly concentrated in Ningbo, Taiyuan, Shanxi, Beijing, Tianjin and other regions. 2000 global sintered neodymium iron boron production of 15090 tons, of which China's 5550 tons (37%), 7700 tons (50%) of Japan, the United States 1020 tons (7%), 820 tons in Europe (5%) [1]. 2001 China sintered neodymium iron boron production of about 6400 tons, in 2002 was 8000 tons, in 2003 reached tons, becoming the world's first sintered neodymium iron boron production of [2, 3]. From the output, China sintered neodymium iron boron in 2003 has accounted for 73% of the world's total output, Japan, Europe and the United States accounted for 24.5%, 1.8% and 0.7%[2]. 2004 China sintered neodymium iron boron yield between 2 to 2.5 million tons, which in Ningbo area (including other areas in Zhejiang Province) about 1 million tons, Taiyuan area about 8 tons, about 5 tons of Beijing and Tianjin area, other area about 2 KT estimates. And production capacity by the end of this year should be able to reach 30 thousand tons. At present our country's neodymium iron boron production plant about 150, with an annual output of more than 1000 tons of about 10.

From the investment and construction of new plant and old plant expansion, 2003~2004 years for a high tide. 2004 compared with 2003, production capacity almost doubled. It is expected that the 2005 to 2010 growth will be slightly slower. The reason why production capacity in 2003 and 2004 have rapid growth, there are three reasons: one is actual demand indeed rapid growth, the growth of production capacity to meet the international and domestic market demand; the second is before a few years to 2003 Japan neodymium iron boron main component of the patent failure is high expectations; the third is the neodymium iron boron products quality has greatly improved, open up a broader market.

Patent has always been an important issue in the development of sintered neodymium iron boron in China, the situation is in table 1. From the table 1, after 2014, Japan has no reason to take the patent for the origin of the restrictions in china. Actually, in addition to the main component of the patent, patent on neodymium iron boron composition and process has many (hundreds of), for example Intermetallics Co., Ltd. rubber isostatic pressing (RIP) process and barrel plating (wet hypoxia process for BP coating process, Hitachi Metals, three German metal and Showa denko process, the United States Crucible Company (closed) rejection of high oxygen content process. China's patented -B (Co) Nd-Fe anisotropic magnetic material in china;

U.S. Patent No. 5645651st Affirmative crystal structure containing compounds to patent, effective July 8, 2014. This patent applies not only to compounds containing Co, but also to compounds that do not contain Co, as well as other elements such as Dy.

There are a lot of patents in the field of boron, such as Luo Yang's "rejection of technology patents", Nankai University, Zhou Yongqia and other "co precipitation reduction diffusion method for preparation of neodymium iron boron permanent magnet alloy" patents, etc.. So, it can be said that after 2004 patent control will be more and more weak, and in 2014 it should not play much role in the.

Chinese company has purchased the Sumitomo patent: Sanhuan high technology and new material company, Beijing Beijing Magnetic Technology Co., Ltd., Antai Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Tsinghua silver nano technology development Co Ltd, Ningbo Yunsheng strong magnetic Co., Ltd.. As a result of the purchase of a patent, the company and other Chinese companies have more advantages in sales. It can be predicted that the situation will change in 2012, patent advantages will no longer be so obvious. Therefore, from the perspective of production capacity (taking into account the construction cycle), 2010~2015 years will be China's new era of the development of a large neodymium iron boron.

2 product grade

The development of sintered neodymium iron boron in China is not only in production, but also in the grade. As predicted by Liang Shuyong, and now China's sintered neodymium iron boron has entered a large-scale VCM, MRI, pick-up CD-ROM, CD and other high-tech fields. In 2003, China's high technology application of neodymium iron boron has accounted for 30.7% of the total output, of which VCM magnets accounted for 1.1%[2]. At present, a few manufacturers have been able to mass production of N53, 52M, 48H and other high-end products, to achieve a world-class level. For example, the performance of Ru Wei Gao reported (5) as follows: a) Br=1.457T 14.57kG, Hci=1148kA/m 14.43kOe, (BH) max=408kJ/m3 (51.3MGOe); b) Br=1.32T 13.2kG, Hci=2035kA/m 25.57kOe, (BH) max=320kJ/m3 (39.9 mgoe). At least 5 companies can be mass production of N50, 48M, 45H, 42SH, 40UH and other world recognized mainstream high-end products. As for 45M, N45, 42H and other conventional, high-end products, there are at least a dozen or so can be produced in the country. In fact, due to the fierce competition, low-grade products have been difficult to profit, profit is mainly in the middle and high-end products. It is expected in 2005 China sintered neodymium iron boron high technology applications is expected to reach 40~50%.

It is worth mentioning here is the voice coil motor (VCM (voice coil motor, VCM) used high performance sintered neodymium iron boron because VCM magnets application share how much can in some extent show that a country of sintered NdFeB production, application level. VCM magnet in 2000 before the main 42M, 45M, 48M and other brands of products, and now the leading products for the 48M, 45H and other brands. 50M, 52M, 48H also occupy a certain market share. Estimated that the basic situation in the past five years will not be a big change.