Magnetic Nanoparticles

In MAGNET, we make and study new materials based on magnetic nanoparticles. For this, we combine synthesis with material characterization and modelling to reveal and exploit  the structure-property links in magnetic nanoparticle-materials.

Magnetic materials play an essential role in most electromagnetic applications hence also in many energy conversion technologies. A focus of our research is understanding heat losses in magnetic nanoparticle-materials in high-frequency fields and investigating how this can be tailored for specific uses. Heat losses are usually considered an energy waste. However, we exploit electromagnetic heat dissipation in nanoparticles to electrify the heating of catalytic reactors to >800 °C (projects INDUCAT and E-T-Water), and to drive localized magnetic hyperthermia heating (ca. 45 °C) for cancer treatment.

A rather different material design is needed in the project HiFMag, where we deal with development of new nano-structured magnetic materials for switch-mode power supplies. In this case, the heat dissipation has to be negligible (ideally zero) and we work at developing nanoparticle-materials that can outperform conventional materials at high frequencies (1-10 MHz).

[1] M.R. Almind et al., ACS Applied Nano Materials (2021)                                                               https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsanm.1c01941