What’s the most powerful magnet?

During this article we would like to tell you which are the most powerful magnets available on the market today. Before that, however, it seems essential to us to make it clear that the magnet is a material that has the capacity to attract iron and steel, mainly, to its orbit. This happens from the attraction that their opposite poles suffer.

In IMA you will find Neodymium magnets, but also Samarium magnets, which are known as rare earth magnets and are the most modern generation of magnetic materials. They have properties far above the traditional ones and are currently the most powerful magnets on the market. Its high coercitivity, as well as its remanence, make possible new possibilities and novel designs to be used in reduced spaces or where a higher magnetic field is needed.

The temperature is what conditions the use of these magnets. For example, Neodymium can be used with temperatures from 80ºC to 200ºC. Samarians from 200ºC to 350ºC. Both can be used at temperatures below 0ºC.

Neodymium and magnetic resonances.

The American company General Motors and the Japanese Sumimoto Metal put the first Neodymium (Nd2Fe14B) magnet in operation for everyday use in 1982. These magnets soon found space in our technology industry in devices such as speakers or hard drives.

However, there are other environments, where we can find much more powerful magnets in our day to day, such as medical devices where resonances are performed. This type of medical equipment uses a strong magnetic field for its operation. Closed resonance devices are large Neodymium magnets. On the other hand, the open ones are strong magnetic fields that have a coil to conduct all this. For all these reasons it is important not to approach these devices with metallic objects.

We must bear in mind that the Earth has a magnetic field of about 5×10-5 Teslas. The one of an open magnetic resonance apparatus between up to 0,5 t closed can reach up to 5 Teslas.

The world’s most powerful magnet is 44.14 Teslas.

Far from its daily use we can find great magnets with scientific purpose. The world’s most powerful magnet was built in the United States in 2011 in a University Center in Florida. This super magnet has a magnetic field of 44.14 Teslas, and we can say that it is 900 thousand times that of the earth and more than 9 times that of a closed resonance equipment that we find in a hospital. In order for us to see its power we can indicate that more than ten thousand liters of water are necessary to cool the nucleus again. The use of this powerful magnet will allow an improvement of materials with which to produce products such as semiconductors or solar cells.

It is true that after making this the most powerful magnet that exists today, leaving behind the 38 Tesla of a Chinese laboratory, we must continue to say that today there are magnets with more power, but we must warn that they are hybrids and not resistive. As we know, hybrid magnets can only maintain the maximum power that is less than one second, while resistive magnets will do so for as long as we need.

Research with this powerful magnet will allow science to advance in the study and use of materials that will gradually become part of our daily lives and in which, possibly, we are not aware now.