Niron Magnetics announced Friday a conditional commitment from the Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) for a direct loan of up to $150 million with a 20-year term to support construction and equipment for the company’s advanced manufacturing plant in Sartell, Minnesota. 

The Minneapolis – based company is working towards commercializing the world’s first rare-earth-free Iron Nitride permanent magnets, it said. 

The financing would accelerate domestic production of Niron’s proprietary Iron Nitride permanent magnets, which do not require rare earth materials, and would expand domestic production of advanced permanent magnets. 

The Niron conditional commitment was announced by President Trump at the American Mining Industry gathering in Washington D.C. and is intended to advance Niron’s commercialization and scaling of rare-earth-free Iron Nitride magnets.  

Iron Nitride technology was developed at the University of Minnesota and scaled over the last 13 years, resulting in technology that provides manufacturers with an alternative to rare earth magnets. 

Permanent magnets are essential components in defense systems, data centers, industrial automation, consumer electronics, robotics, aerospace applications, and advanced electric motors. Today, most rare earth permanent magnets are produced in Asian markets, creating strategic vulnerabilities for U.S. manufacturers. 

Niron’s supply chain has no rare earth materials, offshore separation, or heavy rare earth exposure, it said. 

“This conditional commitment recognizes the importance of Niron’s rare-earth-free approach and the urgency of building domestic manufacturing capacity for a technology the world increasingly depends on,” Niron CEO Jonathan Rowntree said in a news release. 

“We are accelerating commercialization of an American-developed magnet technology that offers manufacturers a domestic path to high-performance permanent magnets built without rare earth materials.” 

The conditional financing is intended to accelerate the buildout of Niron’s first commercial-scale rare-earth-free permanent magnet manufacturing plant scheduled to be operational in 2027. 

The 287,000-square-foot Sartell plant would bring material-to-magnet production under one roof and produce up to 1,500 tons of rare-earth-free permanent magnets annually, the company said, adding that the plant is the first step in Niron’s modular manufacturing platform, with final site selection underway for a subsequent U.S. manufacturing plant capable of producing 10,000 tons of annual capacity that is expected to break ground in 2028.