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A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 6
8 METALS | POLYMERS | CERAMICS
process developed as part of DOE’s
Critical Materials Institute is designed
to economically recover large amounts
of magnets made using neodymium—a
rare earth element that is mined out-
side the U.S. The permanent magnets
are used in everything from computer
hard drives and cell phones to clean
energy technologies such as electric
vehicles and wind turbines.
ORNL’s highly automated pro-
cess for recovering magnets employs
a unique system to sort and align hard
drives on a conveyer for processing. The
method uses a mapping station with
barcode scanning and a coordinate
measuring machine to populate a data-
base of each make of hard drive so they
may be positioned for correct robotic
disassembly. The process is designed
Stanford researchers modified a sheet of polyethylene with a series of chemical
treatments to make a cooling fabric. Courtesy of L.A. Cicero.
Metaldyne Performance Group
Inc. (MPG), Southfield, Mich.,
acquired Brillion Iron Works Inc.,
Brillion, Wis., which specializes in
the casting design and production
of gray, ductile, and austempered
ductile iron products. MPG manu-
factures gray and ductile iron cast-
ings and machines iron, aluminum,
and steel components for the trans-
portation and industrial markets.
BRIEFS
The Steel Market Development Institute, Detroit, released its 2016 Steel
Industry Technology Roadmap for Automotive, which looks at advanced
high-strength steel (AHSS) material and manufacturing technologies re-
lated to design, fuel economy, strength, durability, environmental perfor-
mance, value, and how AHSS meets those requirements now and in the
future. It also identifies AHSS solutions and recommends areas for future
research
PLASTIC CLOTHING
COOLS SKIN
Researchers at Stanford Univer-
sity, Calif., engineered a low-cost plas-
tic material that could become the
basis for clothing that cools the wearer,
reducing the need for air conditioning.
The plastic-based textile, if woven into
clothing, could cool a person’s body far
more efficiently than the natural or syn-
thetic fabrics worn today.
The material works by allowing
the body to discharge heat in two ways
that would make the wearer feel nearly
4°F cooler than if they wore cotton
clothing. It also allows the heat that a
person’s body emits as infrared radia-
tion to pass through the plastic textile.
To develop the new textile, researchers
blended nanotechnology, photonics,
and chemistry to give polyethylene a
number of characteristics desirable in
clothing material—it allows thermal
radiation, air, and water vapor to pass
through, and it is opaque to visible
light. stanford.edu.
RECOVERING RARE
EARTH MAGNETS
The DOE’s Oak Ridge National
Laboratory (ORNL), Tenn., and Momen-
tum Technologies, Dallas, signed a
nonexclusive licensing agreement for
an ORNL process designed to recover
rare earth magnets from used com-
puter hard drives. The patent-pending
ORNL process helps recover magnets
from used computer hard drives.