Niron Breaks Ground on Iron Nitride Magnet Plant

Niron Magnetics has broken ground on a 190,000-square-foot facility in Sartell, Minnesota, aiming to produce 1,500 tons per year of rare-earth-free Iron Nitride (Fe4N) permanent magnets by early 2027.

Backed by Stellantis, Samsung, Magna, Allison Transmission and others, the company has already been sampling from a Minneapolis pilot plant operating in 2024. Wood is serving as EPCM and Ryan Companies is the general contractor for the Sartell buildout, which reuses the former Verso Paper Mill site and is expected to create about 175 jobs in a designated coal community.

Fe4N offers high magnetization without relying on scarce rare-earth elements, targeting applications from EV drivetrains and data-center cooling to robotics, defense and consumer electronics. If the technology scales with the necessary coercivity, thermal stability and durability, it could meaningfully challenge the decades-long dominance of Chinese NdFeB magnet producers.

Significant execution risk remains: scale-up beyond pilot, oxidation and long-term performance must be proven, and the 2027 timeline leaves time for setbacks. A persistent midstream bottleneck - separation, refining and alloying capacity still concentrated in China - means broader U.S. supply-chain resilience will require substantial investment alongside downstream breakthroughs.

Sartell represents a strategic bet on domestic magnet capability with clear upside and important technical and policy hurdles to clear.