With a total of about 130,000 visitors and more than 2,500 exhibitors, this year's International Manufacturing Technology Show set a new record. The fair, which takes place every two years in Chicago, shows trend topics from Industry 4.0, digitization and smart manufacturing to additive manufacturing. At the joint booth of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the Project Group IWKS provided information about the Lighthouse Project "Criticality of Rare Earth Elements". The recently completed project was carried out together with seven other Fraunhofer Institutes. Its goal was to significantly reduce the proportion of rare earths such as dysprosium and neodymium in high-performance permanent magnets. This was achieved by recovering rare earths using innovative recycling technologies or by substituting rare earths with other elements, such as cerium. The powerful magnets are essential for electric motors such as those used in electric cars. The recovery of recyclable materials from old motors and securing access for the industry to these materials will become even more important in the future. The researchers of the Lighthouse Project were able to significantly reduce the amount of dysprosium required and presented new approaches with regard to Design for Recycling for electric motors.

In addition to numerous discussions, the staff of the Project Group IWKS on site also brought many impulses back home for their future research - not least through the exchange with colleagues from other Fraunhofer Institutes at the show.

Please find more impressions of the show in our video.