| Summary: | The rare-earth-free MnAlC alloy is currently considered a very promising candidate for permanent magnet applications due to its high anisotropy field and relatively high saturation magnetization and Curie temperature, besides being a low-cost material. In this work, we presented a simple fabrication route that allows for obtaining a magnetically enhanced bulk <i>τ</i>-MnAlC magnet. In the fabrication process, an electric arc-melting method was carried out to melt ingots of MnAlC alloys. A two-step solution treatment at 1200 °C and 1100 °C allowed us to synthesize a pure room-temperature <i>ε</i>-MnAlC ingot that completely transformed into <i>τ</i>-MnAlC alloy, free of secondary phases, after an annealing treatment at 550 °C for 30 min. The Rietveld refinements and magnetization measurements demonstrated that the quenched process produces a phase-segregated <i>ε</i>-MnAlC alloy that is formed by two types of <i>ε</i>-phases due to local fluctuation of the Mn. Room-temperature hysteresis loops showed that our improved <i>τ</i>-MnAlC alloy exhibited a remanent magnetization of 42 Am<sup>2</sup>/kg, a coercive field of 0.2 T and a maximum energy product, (BH)<sub>max</sub>, of 6.07 kJ/m<sup>3</sup>, which is higher than those reported in previous works using a similar preparation route. Experimental evidence demonstrated that the synthesis of a pure room-temperature <i>ε</i>-MnAlC played an important role in the suppression of undesirable phases that deteriorate the permanent magnet properties of the <i>τ</i>-MnAlC. Finally, magnetic images recorded by Lorentz microscopy allowed us to observe the microstructure and magnetic domain walls of the optimized <i>τ</i>-MnAlC. The presence of magnetic contrasts in all the observed grains allowed us to confirm the high-quality ferromagnetic behavior of the system.
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