Effective high-energy ball milling in air of Fe65Co35 alloys

Fe65Co35 alloys are technologically relevant, especially in magnetic storage and composite permanent magnets, due to the fact that they present higher saturation magnetization per volume than any other material. Out of the various approaches undertaken for its production, mechanical ball milling remains the most common and efficient method, especially considering the large industrial scale of the applications. With the development of cost-efficient processing in mind, the influence of performing the synthesis of the FeCo alloys in air instead of the standard argon atmosphere is studied. The structural and magnetic characterization, along with the study of the oxygen content of the samples, proves that synthesizing FeCo alloys in air produce materials with nearly identical magnetic performance as their argon-milled counterpart, with the oxidation extent of the materials consisting almost exclusively of the oxide passivating layer located at the surface. In addition, no aging effect was observed in the saturation magnetization up to 6 months. It is concluded that the use of argon atmospheres, desiccators and/or glove boxes may be entirely removed from the process without affecting the magnetic properties. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.