Category: Electrification

COP 26: making EV motors be faster, travel further and be greener

Posted on by telliott

When James Widmer took up his PhD at Newcastle University, he could never have known that less than ten years later he would have developed a technology with the potential to save the world. However, that’s how AEM’s unique, highly sustainable EV motor technology got its start, and how the now Prof Widmer came to be AEM’s founder and CEO.

In developing this technology, James – and in time a team of AEM engineers – knew that a truly sustainable EV motor had to make improvements to existing technology in several areas. Not only did it have to clean up the EV motor supply chain and be easily recycled, it also needed to be more efficient and better performing in the vehicle. In short, it needed to be faster, travel further and be greener than the internal combustion engine technology it was replacing.

An entirely new technology, AEM’s motor does away with rare earth magnets and copper, which is crucial when it comes to addressing all three of the criteria it needs to meet.

By not using magnets in the motor’s rotor, for example, AEM is able to let the motor spin faster as it does not lose performance at the higher temperatures this generates. Unlike traditional motors, it is also able to ‘coast’, meaning that it uses less power when the vehicle is maintaining a steady speed or decelerating. These are both characteristics that allow for a more efficient motor.

Meanwhile, its green credentials are clear. By not using rare earth magnets, AEM is not relying on a problematic and volatile supply chain. (You can find out just how damaging rare earth mining can be to the environment by reading our previous blog, COP26: Creating a sustainable passenger car solution).

By removing copper from the motor’s stator and replacing it with aluminium, AEM is also making the motor easier to recycle at end of life. Rather than copper needing to be removed by hand before the casing is recycled, the whole AEM motor can be smelted as scrap, with the steel and aluminium separating naturally.

For ideas from some of the automotive and engineering sectors’ brightest minds, be sure to join us for N.EAST at 15:00 on 10 November at COP26 in Glasgow or virtually via COP26’s YouTube live channel.

COP 26: creating a sustainable passenger car solution

Posted on by telliott

Before joining AEM as Chairman in March 2021, Peter Fleet had already enjoyed a highly successful 30-year career at Ford Motor Company. Having most recently held the role of Group Vice President and President of Asia Pacific, Peter has an encyclopaedic knowledge and understanding of the global automotive sector.

That’s why on 10 November, Peter will talk at our COP26 event, Novel Electrification through Advanced Sustainable Technologies (N.EAST), about the changing passenger car market, and what the industry needs to do to make the sector truly sustainable.

By 2030, Deloitte estimates that more than 90% of global passenger car and light commercial vehicle production will consist of electric vehicles (EVs). While this is clearly a step in the right direction when it comes to decarbonising road transport, it does not solve the sustainability issues around passenger cars in its entirety.

Much has been said about sustainability concerns around EV batteries, but similar issues must also be raised about EV motors as well.

Ever since the first hybrid cars came to market, electrified vehicles have traditionally been driven by permanent magnet (PM) motors. As the EV market gathered pace, PM motors became the de facto solution, and the supply chain built itself around this technology.

But PM motors have a number of characteristics that threaten to undo much of the good work that the automotive sector is doing around decarbonisation.

Firstly, the rare earth materials used in the magnets of PM motors are highly damaging when mined and processes. Every tonne of rare earth material taken from the ground produces up to 1.4 tonnes of radioactive waste, 200m3 of acid-containing sewage water, 60,000m3 waste gas containing hydrochloric acid and 27.6 tonnes of CO2.

The pricing of these materials is also highly volatile, making it difficult for manufacturers to accurately predict the cost of scaling PM motor technology to the many millions needed by 2030.

Meanwhile, PM motors are costly and inefficient to recycle owing to the use of magnets and copper.

So, the question remains, how do we make EVs truly sustainable, in time for mass global adoption in the passenger car market?

For ideas from some of the automotive and engineering sectors’ brightest minds, be sure to join us for N.EAST at 15:00 on 10 November at COP26 in Glasgow or virtually via COP26’s YouTube live channel.

AEM to show EV motors need not cost the earth at COP26

Posted on by telliott
  • AEM’s event at COP26 on 10 November will explore how EV motors can be produced and recycled sustainably
  • Most EV motors currently use rare earth metals, obtained through a mining process that is harmful to the environment
  • ‘Novel Electrification through Advanced Sustainable Technologies’ event to include speakers from AEM, the University of Nottingham, Hypromag and Tevva.

1 October 2021 Press Release

Sustainable EV motor manufacturer, Advanced Electric Machines (AEM), will set out why the production of electric vehicles (EV) motors doesn’t need to be harmful to the environment, as it takes to the stage at COP26. At 15:00 on 10 November in the Green Zone, AEM’s event, titled ‘Novel Electrification through Advanced Sustainable Technologies’ will look at why today’s EV motors are so problematic, and what can be done to ensure that the next generation of components allow EVs to be genuinely sustainable.

AEM’s CEO, Professor James Widmer, and Chairman, Peter Fleet, will be joined at COP26 by an impressive panel of speakers, who will each give their own perspective on how EV motors can be made more sustainable. These include Professor Mark Johnson, Director of the EPSRC Centre for Power Electronics at the University of Nottingham, Professor Allan Walton, Founding Director of Hypromag, and David Thackray, Sales and Marketing Director at Tevva.

Currently, the vast majority of EVs in production are driven by a permanent magnet motor (PMM), which contains rare earth metals. The mining of these materials is highly damaging, with the extraction of one tonne of rare earth metal creating 1.4 tonnes of radioactive waste and 27.6 tonnes of CO2.

The speakers at AEM’s COP26 event have all developed ways to reduce or eliminate rare earth mining from the EV motor supply chain, either by developing pioneering motor technology or incorporating it into their products.

AEM’s patented motor technology achieves higher levels of performance and efficiency than equivalent permanent magnet motors, without using rare earth metals. It has also eliminated the need to use copper in its motors, making them easier to recycle than conventional motors.

Further information about the ‘Novel Electrification through Advanced Sustainable Technologies’ event will be announced via AEM’s website and social media channels in the coming weeks.

For any media enquiries please contact:

Alex Michaelides, Torque Agency Group

amichaelides@torqueagencygroup.com | +44 (0) 7802 865 732

Alex Juggins, Torque Agency Group

ajuggins@torqueagencygroup.com | +44 (0) 7470 498 175

Making rare earth materials as sustainable as possible

Posted on by telliott

Rare earth magnets are increasing in demand as we shift to a zero-carbon economy, and electric vehicles especially use a lot of magnets. Currently, less than 1% of these magnets are actually recycled, so as the demand for them increases, as does the scale of extraction and processing of the rare earth materials, which is creating huge environmental issues.

RaRE is a project underway at Advanced Electric Machines that has set out to answer: how do we extract rare earth materials from waste electronics and recycle them back into magnets to be used in motors, and do we do this in a sustainable way? 

Why?

There are a considerable number of individual magnets in the non-drive mechanisms in a car. Many of these magnets are tiny, so they cannot easily be replaced with magnet-free technology. The question then becomes, how do we make these irreplaceable magnets as sustainable as possible?

For all the time and effort invested, recycling rare earth materials has been broadly unsuccessful. The current process is to either melt magnets back to a master alloy or use solvent extraction to extract rare earth materials. Not only are these processes energy-intensive, but they also require magnets to be separate from other components in the motor housing, which often isn’t the case. With a limited supply available, manufacturers are looking for a more practical and cost-effective way of operating systems using magnet-based technology.

Working with the leader in magnet recycling and manufacturing, HyProMag, and the University of Birmingham, our goal is to broaden the range of scrap for the extraction of magnets and scale-up the extraction and recycling processes to make as many motor technologies as sustainable as possible.

The recycled magnets will be used in the bespoke ancillary motors designed and manufactured by AEM, and applied by Bentley Motors. Unipart will then develop a scalable manufacturing route for the volume production of this design. 

The Opportunities

There are currently no motor designs on the market using recycled rare earth materials. Aside from making this an industry first, there are broader opportunities from the outcome of the RaRE project.

For instance, the scrap separation process that will be developed has applications within both global waste handling and waste handling facility designs. There are also benefits for recycled rare earth production facilities from the models of scrap processing and magnet manufacturing that will be developed, and all these processes and materials will be applicable across several sectors, creating a huge number of opportunities in different applications.

These outcomes from RaRE will present an opportunity to create a competitive advantage for UK motor manufacturing by developing a differentiated supply chain for motors and power electronics, which is expected to grow to £5 billion by 2025. The cost-effective production of magnetic materials could turn the UK into an exporter of magnets for tractions motors and inherently protect the UK from future supply issues. 

Our Solution

The University of Birmingham developed its patented Hydrogen Processing of Magnet Scrap method for use with neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) magnets. This process reduces these types of magnets to a de-magnetised powder that can be mechanically removed from a component. The powder is then purified and remanufactured by resintering, where it is compacted into a solid form using heat or pressure.

This solution allows the extraction of magnets from a wide variety of sources, from automotive products to loudspeakers and hard disk drives, creating immense scale-up opportunities for the project.

AEM are also developing prototype motor designs that have been optimised to use these recycled rare earths whilst meeting the high performance and reliability criteria required by vehicle manufacturers.

Read the RaRE press release: https://advancedelectricmachines.com/new-bentley-motors-project-announcement/