What Metals Are Magnets Made From?
Magnets demonstrate one of the most intriguing of all natural forces, magnetism. They can attract metal to themselves from a distance. They will pull other magnets closer to themselves or push them away, depending on how their poles line up with each other. Magnets are mostly made of metal, as only a few substances have the ability to form magnets. While many types of metals can be used to make magnets, in practice only a small number of them are used.
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Iron
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Iron is one of the most common metals used in making magnets. Iron has one of the highest relative permeabilities of all metals. Relative permeability is the measurement of how easily magnetized a substance is. Pure iron is so easily magnetized that it can create magnetic fields 200,000 times stronger than the fields used to magnetize it. It is often alloyed with neodymium to produce even stronger magnets.
Nickel
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Nickel is another common metal used in making metals. It is not as strong as iron, magnetically, but it does have its advantages. When mixed in with certain other metals, as it is in aluminum-nickel-cobalt magnets, called Alnico magnets, it produces a magnet that is very strong but also highly resistant to temperature changes and shock.
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Cobalt
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Cobalt is even weaker magnetically than nickel, but it is still a stronger magnetic material than most others. It is one of the other ingredients of the Alnico magnet.
Neodymium
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Neodymium is the most magnetically powerful metal there is. It is very expensive and used rarely. It tends to be brittle and rusts easily. When it is used, it is often mixed with iron and boron. It is often coated with other metals or epoxies to help prevent rust.
Samarium
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Samarium is another metal often used in making magnets. When alloyed with cobalt it produces a magnet that is very strong, stronger even than Alnico. It also is resistant to rust and temperature changes, though it is brittle.
Aluminum
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Aluminum is a nonmagnetic metal. However, when alloyed with nickel and cobalt to form Alnico, it becomes capable of producing a magnetic field. This alloying makes aluminum magnetic because a metal's magnetic field comes from the manner in which its electrons spin and orbit around their atoms. When the aluminum is bonded to the other metals its atoms' shapes are changed, giving its electrons different, and magnetic, orbital properties, according to Arnold Magnetic Technologies' book on permanent magnets.
Copper
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Copper is also a nonmagnetic metal. However, it is a very good conductor of electricity, and so is usually used to make wires. As such it forms one of the key components of electromagnets, which are coils of wire wrapped around a metal core, hooked up to a battery.
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