LG Innotek announced on the 14th that it has developed the world’s strongest ‘eco magnet’ in collaboration with the magnet company SGI (Sunglim Group Industry) Co. With this development, LG Innotek will be able to target the global magnet industry led by China and Japan.
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This product significantly reduced the use of HRE metals, a key ingredient of magnets, by 60% compared to the previous product. This is especially good news since the industry is struggling to find alternatives of HRE metals due to their lack of supply, high price, and environmental pollution caused. LG Innotek’s development of the eco magnet is particularly significant in that South Korea imports most of the HRE metals from China. The product has raised the magnetic performance for home appliances and vehicle steering motors to 14.8 kG (in kilogauss, magnet strength), which is the world’s highest level. This beats the products of Japanese companies that have led the industry for nearly 40 years. The industry believes that the technical performance limit of this magnet is 15kG. The magnetic performance of products commercialized so far is only 14.2 to 14.3 kG.
The advantage of the eco magnet is that it uses only 40% of the HRE metals compared to the previous one. This minimizes the risk of production interruption due to a lack of raw material supply.
Automakers and vehicle components companies are showing interest in this magnet, because they have been struggling to reduce the proportion of HRE metals in their products.