The manufacturing route primarily determines the properties of materials prepared by additive manufacturing methods. In this work, the microstructural features and mechanical properties of 316 L stainless steel prepared by the selective laser method have been determined. Three types of samples, (i) selective laser melted (SLM), (ii) selective laser melted and hot isostatic pressed (HIP) and (iii) selective laser melted and heat treated (HT), were characterized. Microstructural analysis revealed that SLM samples were formed by melt pool boundaries with fine cellular–dendritic-type microstructure. This type of microstructure disappeared after HT or HIP and material were formed by larger grains and sharply defined grain boundaries. The SLM-prepared samples contained different levels of porosity depending on the preparation conditions. The open interconnected LOF (lack of fusion) pores were observed in the samples, which were prepared with using of scanning speed 1200 mm/s. The blowhole and keyhole type of porosity were observed in the samples prepared by lower scanning speeds. The HIP caused a significant decrease in internal closed porosity to 0.1%, and a higher pressure of 190 MPa was more effective than the usually used pressure of 140 MPa, but for samples with open porosity, HIP was not effective. The relatively high yield strength of 570 MPa, tensile strength of 650 MPa and low ductility of 30–34% were determined for SLM samples with the lower porosity content than 1.3%. The samples after HIP showed lower yield strengths than after SLM (from 290 to 325 MPa) and relatively high ductility of 47.8–48.5%, regardless of the used SLM conditions.

The wide application of Nd-Fe-B permanent magnets, in addition to rare-earth metal resource constraints, creates the necessity of the development of efficient technologies for recycling sintered Nd-Fe-B permanent magnets. In the present study, a magnet-to-magnet recycling process is considered. As starting materials, magnets of different grades were used, which were processed by hydrogen decrepitation and blending the powder with NdH_x. Composition inhomogeneity in the Nd₂Fe₁₄B-based magnetic phase grains in the recycled magnets and the existence of a core-shell structure consisting of a Nd-rich (Dy-depleted) core and Nd-depleted (Dy-enriched) shell are demonstrated. The formation of this structure results from the grain boundary diffusion process of Dy that occurs during the sintering of magnets prepared from a mixture of Dy-free (N42) and Dy-containing magnets. The increase in the coercive force of the N42 magnet was shown to be 52%. The simultaneous retention of the remanence, and even its increase, were observed and explained by the improved isolation of the main magnetic phase grains as well as their alignment.

Ternary Mn₂FeSi alloy was synthesized from pure elemental powders by mechanical alloying, using a high-energy planetary ball mill. The formation of an inverse-Heusler phase after 168 h of milling and subsequent annealing at 1173 K for 1.5 h was confirmed by X-ray diffraction. The diffractogram analysis yielded XA structure and the lattice parameter 0.5677 nm in a good agreement with the theoretically obtained value of 0.560 nm. The final powder was formed by particles of irregular shape and median diameter D50 of 3.8 μm and their agglomerates. The chemical analysis resulted in the mean composition of 49.0 at.% Mn, 25.6 at.% Fe and 25.4 at.% Si. At room temperature, the prepared samples featured a heterogeneous magnetic structure consisting of dominant paramagnetic phase confirmed by Mössbauer spectrometry and a weak ferro-/ferrimagnetic contribution detected by magnetization curves. From the field-cooled and zero-field-cooled curves the Néel temperature of 67 K was determined.