Effects of CE substitution on the microstructures and intrinsic magnetic properties of Nd–Fe–B alloy

•With the increase of Ce, Tc, Ms, and HA decrease gradually, but relatively gentle.•The (Nd1-xCex)30Fe69B alloys have potential to be prepared as permanent magnets.•Ce is tending to diffuse into the Nd-rich phase instead of main phase.

(Nd1−xCex)30Fe69B (x=0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, and 0.6) alloys were prepared by inducting melting, and the effect of substitution of Ce for Nd on their microstructure and intrinsic magnetic properties were investigated. With the increase of Ce content, Curie temperature (Tc) decreases from 582.4 to 504.8 K, saturation magnetization (Ms) decreases from 15.88 to 12.71 kGs, and anisotropy field (HA) decreases from 67.4 to 52.7 kOe. However, the reductions of the intrinsic magnetic properties are relatively gentle, and they still have potential to be prepared as permanent magnets. Moreover, further microstructure observations show that Ce is tending to diffuse into the Nd-rich grain boundary phase instead of main phase during the substitute process. Such aggregation behavior is beneficial to fabricate Ce containing magnet with high Ms.