The Secret of Powerful Neodymium Magnets

In daily life, magnets are a very common thing. From various special electronic devices to daily teaching aids and toys, magnets can often be seen.

We know that the main component of magnets is ferroferric oxide. An ordinary small magnet is made of black ferroferric oxide. However, due to the nature of ferroferric oxide itself, its attraction to iron objects is not too strong, and its magnetism will gradually weaken over time. In this case, how can we make a magnet with stronger attraction and less prone to decay? Under this premise, neodymium iron boron magnets came into being.

This kind of magnet with a shiny surface after anti-corrosion treatment is a neodymium boron magnets, and its chemical formula is Nd2Fe14B. The most commonly used neodymium iron boron magnet is made of neodymium, iron, and boron at high temperature sintering, and is the strongest artificial magnet to date. If the core element of traditional ferroferric oxide is iron, then the reason why neodymium iron boron magnets have such strong magnetism is the role of neodymium. The pieces of metal in the picture below are neodymium:

Neodymium is the fourth element of the lanthanide family of rare earth elements. Like iron, cobalt, nickel and the aforementioned gadolinium, it can also be attracted by magnets. In addition, neodymium is the most active of the lanthanide elements, so it is easily oxidized like iron, which is why there is a coating on the surface of the NdFeB magnet. If neodymium is used to enhance magnetism, then the role of boron should not be underestimated. 

In the periodic table, boron is located to the left of carbon, so boron chemistry similar to carbon-centered organic chemistry has recently emerged. In NdFeB magnets, boron is the mediator between neodymium and iron. Boron greatly expands the maximum magnetism that a substance can produce while ensuring the stability of its molecular structure, making the neodymium magnetic properties of the entire magnet extremely high, and even allowing it to attract objects equivalent to 640 times its own weight.