IQT's Definition of Advanced Materials

IQT's Definition of Advanced Materials

The materials from which our everyday products are made have a huge impact on their cost, design, quality, and performance. In fact, advanced materials are the catalysts that drive technological innovation and help meet some of our most critical societal challenges, such as sustainable energy, environmental protection, and healthcare.

The field of advanced materials encompasses all research activities related to designing, manufacturing, and optimising the properties of novel materials. It is a broad and interdisciplinary domain that draws on the expertise of many different scientists, including chemists, biologists, physicists, engineers, ceramicists, metallurgists, and theoreticians.

It involves discovering new, atomically-scale features of matter that can be exploited to change its physical and functional properties. These features can be used to make a material lighter, stronger, more durable, conduct electricity and heat more efficiently, or even alter its chemical properties. The process of advanced materials development can be split into three main phases: identifying the conditions under which the material will be used, fashioning materials or nanostructures to fulfil those needs, and evaluating their performance for these purposes.

Examples of advanced materials include titanium alloys that allow for the production of aircraft components and automobile frames that are light, strong, and corrosion resistant; carbon nanotubes that have a range of potential uses, from coatings to composites to flat lenses capable of subwavelength imaging; or metamaterials, which can be engineered into structures such as directional antennas that are steered electronically, enabling satellite communications. However, not all materials qualify as advanced, and determining which ones are requires a rigorous definition of what constitutes an improvement over conventional materials.

IQT’s survey asked respondents to choose from a set of six real-world materials to determine if they considered them to be conventional or advanced and, if so, why. The four materials that were considered advanced by the majority of participants were Chitosan Graphene Oxide Composite, 3D-Printed Cobalt-Chromium Alloy, Sapphire Glass, and PEEK polymer. The two conventional materials were Cold-Water Fish Skin and 3D-Printed Stainless Steel.

The findings suggest that further work is needed to develop a simple, standardized definition of advanced materials. This could be helped by guidance on the underlying mechanisms that lead to their enhanced or superior performance and the best measures to use to achieve this. It is also worth exploring whether there are specific circumstances where a particular material’s behaviour can be deemed conventional, as opposed to advanced, for example if it is a novel use or application of a traditional material that has been developed in a unique way.