EU project 3D-prints metallic glass electric motor parts to boost efficiency

Researchers on AM2SoftMag, an EU-funded project on additive manufacturing of amorphous metals for soft magnetics, have used laser-based additive manufacturing to make electric motor components out of metallic glass, an alloy whose atoms freeze into a disordered structure rather than the orderly crystal lattice of a conventional metal. The four-year project, coordinated by Saarland University in Germany, concluded in February 2026.

Magnetic fields inside a motor reverse direction constantly, and conventional magnetic materials resist those reversals, wasting energy as heat. Metallic glass lets magnetic domains move more freely, which cuts those losses. “In metallic glass you don’t have microstructure features, it is frozen liquid with no obstacles,” said Ralf Busch, who coordinated AM2SoftMag and leads the Chair of Metallic Materials at Saarland University.

A team at the IMDEA Materials Institute in Madrid printed the parts by controlling how each microscopic layer cooled after the laser passed over it, without destroying that structure. Apply too much heat and the alloy crystallizes, and the disordered structure is gone. “The only way to create such a disordered structure is by cooling the liquid alloy at around one million degrees Celsius per second,” said María Teresa Pérez Prado, who leads alloy and metal 3D printing research at IMDEA Materials.

Electric motors accounted for more than 50% of all electricity consumed in the EU in 2020, the European Commission estimates, and improving their efficiency through Ecodesign rules is expected to save around 106 TWh a year by 2030, roughly the annual electricity consumption of the Netherlands, and to cut energy bills by around €20 billion a year.

In some applications, the researchers hope for gains of as much as 5%. “If we can make them even one percent more efficient, we will save a lot of energy,” said Matthias Nienhaus, a Saarland University professor who led the project’s work on integrating the new materials into motor designs.

Motors that waste less energy would let EVs, drones and battery-powered tools run longer on smaller batteries.

Busch’s team also developed metallic glass alloys free of cobalt, cutting reliance on another critical raw material, and some future motor designs using soft magnetic materials may reduce Europe’s dependence on permanent magnets made from rare earth elements.

Refining the printing process for industrial-scale production and further reducing electrical losses inside finished components are among the tasks that remain, and the work is still fundamental research.

“This is the first time that these glass-like metals have been made into components for electric motors. That’s an important step towards bringing this technology out of the laboratory,” said Busch.

Source: Horizon Magazine