The U.S. Department of Energy awarded a $2.88 million grant to UH Professor Jakoah Brgoch (left) and Assistant Professor Joshua Bocarsly (right) to accelerate the discovery of next-generation permanent-magnet materials.
Key Takeaways
- The University of Houston is leading a multidisciplinary coalition backed by a $2.88 million Department of Energy grant to discover and synthesize next-generation permanent magnets using advanced artificial intelligence.
- The project aims to protect U.S. economic and national security by finding sustainable, domestically sourced alternatives to neodymium iron boride magnets that rely on foreign-controlled minerals.
- UH will use its state-of-the-art facilities to turn AI predictions into physical products, laying the foundation for a possible university-wide center.
University of Houston researchers are leading a multidisciplinary coalition leveraging artificial intelligence to design and manufacture next-generation permanent magnets, an effort aimed at securing the nation’s domestic supply chain for advanced energy and industrial technologies.
Funded by a $2.88 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, the research project seeks to develop new magnets that reduce American reliance on supply-vulnerable foreign sources by finding alternatives to "critical minerals" — the raw materials essential to U.S. economic and national security.
The grant is part of a $100 million initiative from the DOE to support early-stage research and development projects aimed at boosting domestic magnet manufacturing and critical mineral production.
The UH-led team aims to surpass the properties of neodymium iron boron, the current industry-standard material for high-performance permanent magnets, which are vital components in electric vehicles, industrial motors, generators, electronics and other advanced technologies. They also play a critical role in modern heating and cooling systems.
“Strong magnets are used all over our economy. For example, many modern air-conditioning systems rely on permanent-magnet motors to drive compressors and blower fans,” said principal investigator Jakoah Brgoch, the Eby Nell McElrath Professor of Chemistry at UH. “This has been a longstanding challenge to think about how we replace these magnets with high-performing and more reliable materials, and optimization by just replacing elements is not working. Our goal is to use AI to find entirely new materials while simultaneously balancing these supply constraint concerns.”
Supply chains for neodymium-iron-boride magnets are heavily concentrated overseas, so the federal grant will support UH researchers in their effort to discover sustainable, alternative materials that can be sourced and manufactured more reliably within the U.S.
Meet the Coalition
Over the three-year grant period, Brgoch will head Guided AI for Magnetic Boride/Carbide Intermetallic Technologies (GAMBIT). The multidisciplinary research coalition includes UH Assistant Professor Joshua Bocarsly, alongside scientists from Rice University, Colorado State University, Houston-based startup Newfound Materials and Carrier Global.
"Our goal is to use AI to find entirely new materials while simultaneously balancing these supply constraint concerns.”
— Jakoah Brgoch, UH professor and principal investigator
To accelerate discovery, the GAMBIT team is pairing predictive AI with synthetic validation. AI prediction systems will identify millions of atomic compounds likely to have ideal magnetic capabilities, while a separate AI system will predict the most probable and efficient chemical pathways to actually create the material in a lab.
UH’s role in this project is twofold: researchers will not only help predict viable compounds but also physically synthesize these materials and use the University’s new Advanced Magnetic Characterization Facility to test the results.
“A big bottleneck in discovering new magnets has been finding ways to quickly and accurately measure all these new materials we are making in the labs,” Bocarsly said. “We are excited that this program gives us the opportunity to expand our magnetic characterization facilities at UH, building a data-driven pipeline all the way from prediction to synthesis to validation.”
Because ARPA-E focuses on translation to the commercial market, the project’s ultimate milestone is commercialization through a new startup or expanding Newfound Materials’ business units to bring these magnets to market.
This research is aligned with UH's Advanced Materials and Manufacturing research priority area. Brgoch has also been leading university-wide efforts to create a center that integrates AI-guided design, which can be applied to other fields, such as quantum materials and catalysis.
"This grant is a significant step toward developing a center for intelligent material design and synthesis, and we are looking forward to continuing to build in this area," said Claudia Neuhauser, vice president of research at UH.
In February, Brgoch was among seven UH honorees named a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors. NAI Senior Members are faculty, scientists and administrators who have demonstrated innovation with the potential for meaningful societal impact, along with success in patents, licensing and commercialization, and a commitment to mentoring future inventors.