Kohmei Halada

Abstract:

Sustainable and stable providing of raw critical metals, especially rare earth elements, are getting sever in this century. Japan, which is the country of producing engineering materials, engaged a national project to release the risk of unstable provision of resources of critical metals. The name of the project was GENSO SENRYAKU (Project of Strategic Advanced Materials). Material science and nano-technologies are mobilized to develop more effective use, alternative material and recycling technology. Especially the alternative technology succeeded in breaking a new area of alternation, not by substituting similar material but by changing the mechanism of subjected functions. Ce-free higher performance abrasives and Dy-free Nd magnet were the typical results of the project, and they gave a considerable impact to reduce the price of REE, which once rose more than 30 times. This is the key point for understanding the mechanisms of function and the controlling the structure of material.