Meteorites and asteroids fascinate planetary scientists because they represent the building blocks of planets and offer unique insights into the earliest moments of our solar system. Meteorites can be identified as such because of their unique chemical signatures, and some types (iron meteorites) show beautiful textures called Widmanstätten patterns, which could only form over millions of years. Additionally, these extraterrestrial materials are important for their potential as in-situ resources for space exploration and industrialization, with the most attention given to water (important for habitability, human exploration, and rocket fuel) and rare earth elements. of earths (important for magnets used in electronics) concentrated in sulphide minerals. A recent intersection of science and engineering has come to the fore through new methods of synthesizing tetrataenite, an iron-nickel alloy found in small amounts in iron meteorites, with a uniquely ordered structure that gives it magnetic properties on par with rare earth magnets. A new study by Yurii Ivanov and colleagues from the University of Cambridge and a US patent granted to Laura Lewis and colleagues from Northeastern University describe new methods for the rapid production of tetrataenite. Ivanov and colleagues’ method depends on the presence of phosphorus, allowing the tetrataenite structure to form in seconds rather than millions of years. Lewis uses a process in a furnace that caused melting, cooling, and magnetization. Either way, the discovery of synthetic and potentially mass-produced tetrataenite is exciting because it can be used to make permanent magnets for all but the most demanding electronics (reducing reliance on China’s multi-billion rare earth element monopoly) and it might even make planetary scientists rethink how slowly iron meteorites cooled. READ MORE: Direct formation of hard magnetic tetrataenite in cast bulk alloys and researchers may have just solved the rare earth crisis. This entry was posted in Science News and tagged rare earth element on 2022-11-15 by Planetary News contributor.
