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In our latest episode of Lexicon, we sat down with Tom Grainger, Commercial Vice President at Niron Magnetics,  to explore the hidden role permanent magnets play in modern technology and electrification.

From electric vehicles and wind turbines to smartphones and speakers, these components are essential to countless devices we rely on every day. Tom also discussed the growing strategic importance of rare earth magnets and the risks associated with highly concentrated global supply chains.

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Reinventing the magnet

Permanent magnets rarely make headlines. Yet, as Grainger explained to us, they sit at the core of modern electrification.

“Pretty well every modern electronic device relies on permanent magnets,” he told us. “The car you drive, the speakers you’re hearing me come out of right now, the microphone that’s picking up my voice, all of those are permanent magnet devices,” he added.

“Relying on rare earth magnets today means relying on a supply chain that is over 90 percent concentrated in China. Single point of failure geopolitically,” he said.

But it turns out the issue is not limited to mining.

“All through the supply chain, you see that concentration,” he explained. The result is what he calls a pinch point. “You’ve got a pinch point on which the global economy hinges,” he added.

A magnet-hungry world

Furthermore, the demand side only intensifies the pressure. “As cars install more speakers and compete on infotainment and a great in-cab experience, doubling the speakers doubles the magnets,” Grainger told us. 

“Imagine as you move from an F-35 to a swarm of drones, you’re saving a lot of money, saving a lot of material, but you are greatly increasing your magnet consumption,” he added.

Even in a stable geopolitical climate, supply would be strained. “Even if everything is peachy globally, there are just not enough rare earths to solve this magnet-hungry global economy,” he added.

“For some critical rare earths, China put in place export controls,” he said. Those elements are required for high-temperature applications, which represent roughly 80 percent of use cases. Automotive production slowed. Defense programs accelerated alternative sourcing efforts. Phones, he recalls, were “ringing off the hook.”

“Magnets may already be as strategically important as semiconductors,” he added.

Forty years without a new material

Beyond supply risk, Grainger argues, there is a deeper technological constraint. The last major breakthrough in magnetic materials came in the 1980s with rare-earth magnets.

“The last time we had a new magnetic material that has had any sort of real commercial impact was rare earth magnets in the 1980s,” he told us.

That means four decades of motor and generator design constrained by the same materials. He uses a culinary analogy. “You can imagine you are a chef. You’ve been working with four ingredients. Suddenly, you have another option. It is just an unlock for breakthroughs in motor design,” he added.

“We’ve spent four decades without a new key and without a new door open,” he said. That new key, according to Niron, is iron nitride.

Iron nitride to the rescue

According to Grainger, iron nitride is not a brand-new discovery, being first identified in the 1950s. Later attempts in Japan produced promising but inconsistent results. The missing piece was the ability to understand and control the material at the nanoscale.

“We did not have the technology at the time to be able to explain, just from a physics perspective, what makes iron nitride so magnetic, and then to reliably produce iron nitride in this magnetic phase,” Grainger told us.

Advances in imaging and characterization in the 2000s and early 2010s changed that. “The ability to see what you’re doing when you make an experimental attempt to measure it was unlocked by advances in characterization imaging,” he added.

From there, it took more than a decade to move from laboratory research to bulk, commercially viable magnets. “It was a decade from that program to actually having commercially viable bulk permanent magnets,” he said.

The potential upside is significant. “For a rare earth permanent magnet made of neodymium, that number is about 1.6 Tesla,” he explained. “For iron nitride, that equivalent limit is 2.4 Tesla,” he added.

“That ceiling is 50 percent higher than rare earth permanent magnets,” he said.

Temperature performance is another factor. Rare earth magnets rely on scarce heavy rare earth elements such as dysprosium and terbium to maintain performance at high temperatures. “Iron nitride, just by virtue of its underlying crystal structure and properties, gets that temperature stability for free,” Grainger said.

Unlocking variable flux motors

One of the most intriguing applications discussed in the episode is the variable flux motor. Traditional permanent magnet motors use a technique called flux weakening at high speeds, which requires continuous electrical input. 

Grainger described it with a metaphor: “think of it as holding a spring. If you move your hand, it pops right back up. And so you’re using power to do that.”

Variable flux offers a different approach. “Instead of continuous energy expenditure holding down that spring, it’s like a ratchet. You push down the spring once, and you lock it into place,” he said.

The result is improved efficiency across the speed range. In electric vehicles, that translates directly to range and battery savings. “You get a 2 percent decrease in battery materials. The cost savings on that don’t just pay for your magnets, that pays for your whole motor,” he added.

The same logic applies to appliances and data centers. Efficiency gains compound quickly when systems operate continuously.

Scaling manufacturing

Moving from breakthrough to production required another leap. “Niron has been introducing iron nitride permanent magnets, and we’re doing so on a nano scale,” Grainger told us. 

“Our lab breakthrough was then the second breakthrough, which is really the process. And the process in that case becomes the product,” he said. The goal is modular scalability. Facilities can be replicated in multiple regions, reducing geographic concentration risk.

Iron nitride is composed of iron and nitrogen. Both are abundant and widely sourced. “Anywhere you have an industrialized society, you’ve got an opportunity for iron nitride domestic magnet production,” he said.

A strategic shift

Looking at the bigger picture, Grainger drew a historical analogy to the Haber-Bosch process, which enabled synthetic fertilizer production and reduced reliance on guano mining. “What iron nitride is, is that shift,” he said. “So, what if we could avoid all of that digging. What if we could avoid the reliance on what is fundamentally any mine has a shelf life,” he added.

So, instead of finite ore bodies, he describes a factory-built approach. “This is innovation as a cookie-cutter. Sort of the abundance philosophy around magnets,” he told us.

And, defense customers have taken notice. Programs initially planned for five to seven-year development timelines were “suddenly on 18-month fast tracks” after export controls tightened.

What the next decade has in store

Looking ahead, Grainger defines success in pragmatic terms. “Success for iron nitride is that we’re not talking about magnets as a scarce or critical pain point in global supply chains,” he added.

Beyond stability, he anticipates innovation. New motor and generator designs built around the expanded magnetic ceiling. Localized manufacturing in Asia, Europe, and North America. Reduced vulnerability and expanded design freedom.

“It can be hard sometimes to think about, can new things be done that aren’t just new assembly or new software?” he told us. “And absolutely they can.”

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Those reports have not been afraid to weigh in on matters of public controversy and risk offending powerful groups, which it has managed to do without losing the respect of the governmental organizations that fund these reports. But this year, there have been increasing signs that the Academies' ability to dodge political firestorms has reached its limit. Yesterday, a deeply reported story from Politico explained the breakdown between the National Academies and Republican politicians.

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A senior Android security leader resigned from Google, citing concerns over its Pentagon AI work, climate commitments, and internal transparency.

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Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have created advanced aluminum alloys that could allow for far lighter truck engines still capable of operating at higher temperatures.

The alloys have successfully met the demanding strength and durability requirements of General Motors’ new low-mass, high-efficiency (LMHE) medium-duty truck engine.

Testing under a cooperative research and development agreement showed more than 10 percent improvement in fuel efficiency and a 15 percent reduction in engine weight compared to conventional designs.

New alloys enable reduced mass and superior high-temperature performance

Commercial truck engines, such as those in GM’s Chevrolet Silverado 3500, must endure heavy loads and extended operation.

Traditional materials capable of withstanding these conditions are dense, which hurts fuel economy. Lighter alternatives often fail under the elevated temperatures and pressures of high-performance engines.

According to an ORNL press statement, their team’s new alloys resolve this conflict by providing both reduced mass and superior high-temperature performance.

The ORNL researchers tested two aluminum alloys. One of these, cast ACMZ (AlCuMnZr), was used for the LMHE engine’s cylinder heads and block. It offers high strength at low cost while resisting intense heat and mechanical stress.

The second, DuAlumin3D, is a 3D-printable alloy developed for pistons. It combines lightweight construction with what ORNL describes as the strongest known combination of strength and durability at extreme temperatures for a structural aluminum.

“The shared goal between ORNL and GM was to demonstrate next-generation engines for high-volume trucks that are lighter, lower-cost, and more efficient, all without sacrificing power and performance,” said Allen Haynes, director of the ORNL-led TTO Powertrain Materials Core Program consortium.

“This is a remarkable set of combined outcomes by the GM design team,” added Amit Shyam, who leads ORNL’s Alloy Behavior and Design Group. “Any weight shaved off an engine equates to more miles per gallon for the average driver, saving not only energy, but money.”

An accelerated alloy design approach

The GM-led project, which included ORNL and multiple suppliers, passed rigorous performance and durability tests. In 2025, it earned an R&D 100 Award and a DOE 2025 Team Award. Both ACMZ and DuAlumin3D had previously received R&D 100 honors for earlier breakthroughs.

According to the ORNL press statement, the collaboration integrated materials science, advanced manufacturing, combustion engineering, and computational modeling. ORNL’s accelerated alloy design approach compresses the timeline from concept to prototype application to two to four years. This is a massive reduction when compared with the traditional 10 to 15 years. The shorter lead time reduces costs and risks in moving laboratory innovations to commercial use.

The project received support from the Department of Energy’s Transportation Technologies Office and Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office. The successful demonstration shows how targeted federal research can move quickly from laboratory alloys to proven engine components, giving US truck manufacturers a practical path to lighter, more fuel-efficient vehicles that maintain full performance and durability.

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Scientists at Northwestern University have developed a new liquid material that harvests, stores, and releases energy within a single system.

Powered by sources like light or electricity, the metal- and plastic-free material physically shape-shifts from a fluid into an energy-dense gel to store power, then resets to a liquid simply by exposure to open air. 

This sustainable, adaptable platform eliminates the need for hardware components, opening new doors for clean energy and soft electronics.

“Our material’s ability to store and release energy on demand could make it useful for energy storage, environmental remediation and next-generation soft electronics,” said Samuel I. Stupp, the study’s senior author. 

Bio-inspired technique

To build it, the team looked inside our own bodies and drew inspiration from the cell’s cytoskeleton.

A cellular skeleton is incredibly dynamic. It constantly constructs, breaks down, and reconstructs itself to help the cell move and divide.

Northwestern researchers designed a material that physically builds, dismantles, and rebuilds itself to manage energy. 

Powered by external electrons from sources such as sunlight or X-rays, the initial yellow liquid transforms into an energy-rich black gel that can store energy for months and drive chemical reactions. 

The entire process resets seamlessly when exposed to open air, which dissolves the gel back into its liquid state, allowing it to be recharged and reused repeatedly.

“Living systems are remarkably dynamic,” Stupp said. “They constantly build structures, break them apart, and rebuild them. We wanted to create a synthetic material that behaves in a similar way while performing useful functions.”

To overcome the limitation where energy harvesting, storage, and usage require separate devices, researchers used supramolecular materials that self-organize into larger networks. 

A custom molecule, ANI-MV, was designed. It integrates two functional components into a single system: an amino naphthalene aromatic unit (ANI) that responds to light, and a methyl viologen (MV) unit that stores the captured electrons.

Use in soft electronics

When the light-responsive ANI portion absorbs energy, it transfers electrons to the MV portion, causing neighboring molecules to strongly attract and form pairs called pimers. 

These pimers organize into semiconducting nanoscale ribbons with free-moving, delocalized electrons that eventually entangle into a black gel. 

This network stores electrons throughout its structure, marking the first real-world example of a supramolecular polymeric pimer built from electron-storing molecular pairs.

In laboratory experiments, researchers demonstrated the material’s remarkable versatility by triggering its transformation from a yellow liquid into an energy-rich, conductive black gel using chemical fuel, light, electricity, or X-rays. 

As light can selectively target the fluid, scientists were able to print microscopic conductive patterns that completely vanish once exposed to open air, which reverts the gel back into non-conductive liquid clusters. 

Furthermore, this stored energy can be transferred to oxygen, generating highly reactive molecules that enable the gel to power chemical reactions in complete darkness. This process is known as dark photocatalysis.

“Most light-driven materials stop working when the light source is gone,” Stupp said. “Our material enables a form of ‘dark photocatalysis.'”

Researchers envision this material powering applications ranging from environmental remediation and clean energy to adaptive soft electronics.

The study was published in the journal Chem on June 11.

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