Advanced Materials – Definition, Examples and Uses

What are Advanced Materials?

Advanced materials are such materials that help us to drive technological innovation and optimise the cost and efficiency of existing products, i.e., traditional materials. Advanced materials affect all industries, not only in the creation of new products but can optimise the performance of existing products and materials.

Principles and Concepts for Advanced Materials

By understanding the requirements of the material, materials scientists and engineers create or design the right materials for optimised performance on many levels following certain principles and concepts:

1. Structure – This deals with the study of the composition, starting at the atomic level of a material.
2. Properties – The analysis of the characteristics of the materials, such as chemical, electrical, thermal, optical, magnetic, and more.
3. Process – This is the study of how a material is created and how the creative process can be optimised.
4. Performance – The last and final round of analysing a material’s structure, properties, and process to meet the needs of a specific application is needed.

Advanced Materials and Processes for Polymer

Polymers are macromolecules made up of very large repetitive units. Nowadays, polymers are used in all aspects of life, starting from manufacturing synthetic rubbers for tyres of vehicles, ropes, medical equipment, synthetic fabrics, and many more. So, there is a need to develop some advanced materials and processes for these polymers to achieve the following goals:

1. To improve novel performance
2. To manufacture stronger, more durable, and lighter polymers
3. To reduce the toxicity of by-products produced during polymerisation techniques
4. To reduce the production cost of polymers

Many advanced materials and processes have been developed for manufacturing different polymeric substances as follows:

1. Polymeric membranes are developed, having advanced or novel functions in the various membrane-like separation processes and techniques for liquid and gaseous mixtures (the techniques include gas separation, reverse osmosis, nanofiltration, ultrafiltration, microfiltration, pervaporation, etc.). These important approaches are made towards manufacturing such advanced materials, including:
a. Novel processing technologies of polymers for the membranes
b. Synthesis of designed membrane materials with these novel polymers
c. Advanced surface functionalisation of these polymer membranes

2. Some manufactures are manufacturing smartphones and other electrical devices that are lighter and smaller and use lasers to coat plastic cases for plating with metal traces. As a result, powerful, invisible, lightweight antennas are manufactured.

3. Advanced material in polymers has also played a vital role in Life Science Research programs. Medical device manufacturers use long injection-moulded liquid silicone rubber (LSR) because it is chemically inert, resistant to bacteria, and is easy to sterilise. But these products are not cost-effective. Thus, advanced materials have developed that expertise in the precision of injection mould tooling and developing prototype enabled moulds that are optimised for high-volume production of precision LSR parts. To develop these new product designs and injection moulds for low-volume industries are using UV-curable resins, Nylon/polylactic acid (PLA) polymers, and combinations of materials.

4. Polymer solar cells or ‘plastic solar cells’ are semiconducting materials made up of organic molecules. They are like silicon-based solar cells in function but much advanced and different in the material, making them more sustainable, light in weight, and efficient to use, and have low material and manufacturing cost. They are gaining the interest of the manufacturers as these solar cells generate more energy per single cell and give high performance.

Nanostructured Advanced Materials

Nanotechnology is one of the blooming areas of science and technology, paving the way for advanced materials. Nanotechnology is defined as the science, engineering, and technology conducted at the nanoscale level, which is about \(1\) to \(100\) nanometers. This makes the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes.

Many nanostructured advanced materials are manufactured nowadays that are used as:

Advanced polymers are then assembled in nanosized objects that form the basis of these advanced materials that have many uses in different fields like in:
a. Drug delivery so that these nanosized molecules can reach the part of the body wherever required.
b. Catalysis in small reactors has been developed to help form molecules of high importance that are used in different applications like energy storage and energy generation.

Nanocomposites, which are polymeric resins blended with nanoparticle fillers, are developing as a promising new class of advanced materials. The special features like mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties of these materials are expected to be far superior to those of conventional composites of polymeric resins.

Nanostructured materials could be used in technology like to coat carbon nanotubes with a functional thin film that would allow its rapid dispersion and bonding into plastics as carbon nanotubes are yet not used to their potential due to dispersion problems.

Summary

When a product is manufactured, the materials from which it is made have a big impact on design, price, and quality. Throughout the history of human civilisation, new materials have been created and helped in new innovations. Today these innovations need more expertise for new discoveries, interdisciplinary fields that are focused on the design and development of new materials. After the discovery of atoms, designing new advanced materials with desirable features like materials that were lighter and stronger, that conducted electricity and heat efficiently, etc., came into the picture. Thus, to meet today’s demand, manufacturers need to focus on advanced materials rather than on using conventional materials.

Advanced materials focus on producing polymers, nanostructured molecules and many more semiconducting devices that have special features like easy to transport, cost-effective, user-friendly, etc. Thus, polymeric membranes are widely used for membrane separation in osmosis, nanoparticles coated with polymers are used in drug delivery and catalysis, and polymer solar cells are very useful due to their flexibility. Hence, all advanced materials are manufactured to improve their performance, durability, flexibility, cost-effectiveness in manufacturing and go for sustainable development.

FAQs on Advanced Materials

Q.1. What are advanced materials in chemistry?
Ans: Advanced materials in chemistry include nanomaterials, biomaterials and energy materials that are useful for the developing world. The study of advanced materials in chemistry has helped to develop synthetic chemicals, the interplay between the structure of materials, the processing methods to manufacture those materials, and the resulting material properties.

Q.2. What are advanced materials examples?
Ans: Some examples of advanced materials include polymeric membranes used to cover nanostructured materials that are useful for drug delivery and catalysis. In medical science, these advanced materials are used instead of silicon moulded injections; polymer solar cells and nanocomposites are some other examples of advanced materials.

Q.3. What is the aim of the advanced materials master program?
Ans: The aim of the Master program on advanced material is to provide students with complete training in the field of chemistry and physical chemistry of material science, starting from the stage of selection, synthesis and focusing on physico-chemical characterisations and their use for specific functions and applications in science and technology.

Q.4. What are the properties of advanced materials?
Ans: The properties of advanced materials are to improve the novel performance of the materials, manufacture stronger, more durable, and lighter polymers, reduce the toxicity of by-products produced during polymerisation techniques and reduce the production cost of polymers.

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