{"id":469107,"date":"2022-11-16T06:11:10","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T04:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=469107"},"modified":"2022-11-16T06:13:42","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T04:13:42","slug":"scientists-recreate-critical-material-that-does-not-exist-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/science\/469107-scientists-recreate-critical-material-that-does-not-exist-on-earth.html","title":{"rendered":"Scientists recreate critical material that does not exist on Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A team of scientists from Northeastern University in Boston and the University of Cambridge have managed to synthetically manufacture a useful material that does not occur naturally on Earth, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/money\/2022\/11\/08\/1134461777\/they-made-a-material-that-doesnt-exist-on-earth-thats-only-the-start-of-the-stor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NPR reports<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The metal-based material called tetrataenite was previously only found in meteorites that plunged to Earth&#8217;s surface.<\/p>\n<p>It consists of nickel and iron that were cooled over millions of years while tumbling through space.<\/p>\n<p>NPR reported that the process created a set of characteristics that make the material ideally suited for high-end permanent magnets.<\/p>\n<p>These are key for transforming electric power into mechanical movement in a range of advanced machines, including electric vehicles (EVs).<\/p>\n<p>Being able to recreate tetrataenite for industrial applications could potentially make green energy technologies substantially cheaper.<\/p>\n<p>Permanent magnets have to be able to resist high amounts of pressure and extreme temperatures over a long period.<\/p>\n<p>That requires adding a rare earth element like neodymium or praseodymium \u2014 materials that are difficult to extract.<\/p>\n<p>According to NPR, China controls over 71% of global rare earth extraction, which has been one of the major drivers of its cheap EV boom.<\/p>\n<p>NPR said with the ability to manufacture tetrataenite synthetically, the West could wean itself off its reliance on China for rare earths.<\/p>\n<p>However, the lab still needs to test if its recreated material is as robust as the naturally-occurring version.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 class=\"my-4\">Now read: <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/science\/468583-challenger-space-shuttle-debris-discovered-by-underwater-filming-crew.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">Challenger space shuttle debris discovered by underwater filming crew<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The metal-based material consist of nickel and iron cooled over millions of years to create a material suitable as a rare earth replacement in permanent magnets. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":469121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31750],"tags":[51843,129,67290,82695,82697,82699,59473],"class_list":["post-469107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-asteroids","tag-china","tag-electric-vehicles-evs","tag-meteorites","tag-meteors","tag-npr","tag-rare-earths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":469189,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469107\/revisions\/469189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}