EVOLVING TRENDS IN ADVANCED MATERIALS

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• EVOLVING TRENDS IN ADVANCED MATERIALS
• DEVELOPMENT AND UTILIZATION
• By
• PROF. C.O. NWAJAGU
• DIRECTOR/CEO
• SCIENTIFIC EQUIPMENT DEVELOPMENT
  INSTITUTE(SEDI-E)
• AKWUKE, ENUGU.
• AT
• RAW MATERIALS RESEARCH AND
• DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL (RMRDC) BIENNIAL TECHNOLOGY
  EXPOSITION TECHNO-EXPO 2009 IN ABUJA.
• DATE
• 10TH - 13TH FEBRUARY, 2009.

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DEFINITION OF MATERIAL

• The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary defined
  materials as substances that things can be made
  from or things that are needed in order to do a
  particular activity or production. Materials from
  science and technological point of view are
  classified into metals(alloys, steel, cast iron,
  aluminium, copper, tin, etc) and non
  metals(ceramics,plastics, wood, chemicals,
  textile, etc.)
• These materials have been in existence for our
  utilization and manipulation for the control and
  development of our environment when properly
  manipulated. Below are the appearance and
  invention of some materials in the world by
  mankind.
• 25000BC First ceramic
  appeared
• 3rd Millennium BC Copper metallurgy was invented
• and copper is used for ornamentation
• 2nd Millennium BC Bronze is used for weapons and
  amour
• 1st Millennium BC Pewter(alloy of between
  85-95Sn, Cu and Sb)
• beginning
  to be used in China and Egypt
• 16th Century BC The Hittites
  developed crude iron metallurgy
• 13th Century BC Invention of steel
  when iron and charcoal are
  combined properly

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• 700s BC Porcelains is invented in Tang Dynasphy
  at China
• 8th Century Geber (Jabir) invented artificial
  pearls and described
• the
  purification of greasy or discolored pearls, and
• the
  first recipes for the dying and artificial
• 
  coloring of gemstones and pearls.
• 8th Century Lustreware is invented by Geber in
  Iraq
• 8th Century Geber described the first recipes
  for the
• manufacture
  of glue from cheese.
• 8th Century The streets of Baghdad are the
  first to be poured with tar,
• derived
  from petroleum through destructive distillation.
• 700sBC Tin glazing of ceramics invented by
  Arabic Chemist and potters in Bazra Iraq
• 9th Century Stone-paste ceramics invented in
  Iraq
• 11th Century Damascus Steet developed in the
  Middle East.
• 1448 Johann Guternberg developes type metal
  alloy
• 1450 Cristallo, a clear soda-based glass is
  invented by Angelo Barovier

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• 1590 Glass lenses were developed in the
  Netherlands and
• used for
  the first time in microscopes and
• telescopes
  
• 1738 William Champion patents a process for the
• production
  of metallic zinc by distillation from
• calamine
  and charcoal
• 1740 Benjamin Huntsman developed the crucible
  steel
• technique
• 1779 Bry Higgins issued a patent for hydraulic
  cement
• (stucco) for use
  as an exterior plaster
• 1799 Alessandro Volta made a copper/zinc acid
  battery
• 1821 Thomas Johann Seebeck invented the
  thermocouple
• 1824 Patent issued to Joseph Aspin for Portland
  cement
• 1839 Charles Goodyear invented vulcanized
  rubber
• 1825 Hans Christian produced metallic aluminium
• 1839 Louis Daguerre and William Fox Talbot
  invented silver-based photographic processes
• Bessemer Process for mass production of
  steel patented

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EVOLVING TREND IN ADVANCED MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT
AND UTILIZATION

• Materials have always played an essential role in
  every economic cycle, largely shaping every
  technological system.
• However, in the presently emerging
  techno-economic paradigm, their role tends to be
  very different no single material seems to be
  associated with the paradigm, but rather a kind
  of global dynamics in the conception and
  diffusion of a vast variety of homogeneous and
  heterogeneous materials, in what has been called
  "hyperchoice".
• This dynamic applies not just to "recent"
  high-performance materials such as composites,
  but equally to more "traditional" materials such
  as metallic alloys or ceramics.

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• It is based on increasing knowledge of the
  microscopic properties of matter and on mastering
  industrial reproduction processes of these
  microscopic properties, enabling different
  materials to be combined to make new alloys or
  composites and to customize their properties.
• The concept of "advance materials" refers to
  substances possessing compositions,
  microstructures, properties, performances, or
  application potentials derived from the
  industrial enhancement of their microscopic
  properties.
• There are no "primitive materials," but only
  outdated industrial techniques, processes, and
  equipment. Every traditional material can become
  "advanced" through the adoption of advance
  shaping and manufacturing techniques and
  processes permitting the control of its
  microscopic structure.

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• When examined under the light of the present
  paradigm change, the trend with the greatest
  force in advance materials seems to be the one
  leading to a growing diversity in materials use.
  Three factors have recently acted in this
  direction the increase in the relative cost in
  energy the requirements of the micro-electronic
  components industry the specific demands
  generated by the use of micro-electronics in
  advanced products and processes.
• The vast growth of innovation possibilities in
  programmable capital goods has been not only the
  main impetus for downstream innovations in
  products and services, but also a powerful
  impetus for upstream innovations in materials.
• This contrasts with the previous paradigm, in
  which the dynamics of innovation in the areas of
  materials, chemistry, and final goods set the
  requirements for innovation in capital goods.
• Under the old paradigm, materials were typical
  examples of technical constraints imposed from
  the outside designers and engineers chose a
  material for a principal property or physical
  characteristic that imposed itself technically
  upon the desired product under the new paradigm,
  the modular character of the material, made
  possible by the industrial reproduction of its
  microscopic properties and

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• by intensive use of computer-aided design and
  manufacturing, permits the prior identification
  of a technical need and the ex post development
  of a material specifically adapted to that need.
  In other words, from an exogenous constraint on
  industrial design and engineering, advanced
  materials have become an endogenous production
  variable.
• The specific requirements of the micro-electronic
  components industry have already led to the
  development of a vast supplier network for
  semi-conductive, conductive, and photosensitive
  materials crystals of various types high-purity
  chemicals engineering ceramics and resins.
• The changes occurring in the functional
  characteristics of products and machines, i.e.
  the replacement of moving mechanical parts by
  electronic circuits and the subsequent reduction
  in the size of the products, reduce part of the
  demand for the more common engineering materials
  such as metals and plastics in favour of lighter
  ones, as well as those that present several
  characteristics simultaneously (e.g. the
  lightness of plastics plus the resistance of
  metals).

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• New diverse means of interfacing with the user
  have required the development of advance
  materials that are sensitive to light, to touch,
  to sound, to heat and others with countless
  special characteristics for particular purposes.
• At the same time, the utilization of
  micro-electronics in the design and production of
  advance materials has rejuvenated the
  technological trajectories in "primitive"
  materials like metals and polymers, and has
  created new trajectories in glass and ceramics.
• The convergence between these two different sets
  of trajectories has led to the development of
  several types of composite materials. In short,
  there is a growing richness in the information
  content of materials and a proliferation of
  alternative patterns of materials consumption, in
  line with the general characteristics of the new
  techno-economic paradigm.

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• The technical objectives at stake in the
  competition between different materials have
  become more numerous. Historically, competition
  between materials expressed itself through
  economic advantages that were obtained
  essentially by searching for alternative sources
  of higher quality minerals and ores, cheaper
  processes and transport costs.
• For any specific technical application, there was
  generally a single material that dominated more
  or less durably
• it was the regime of "mono-choice,"
  characterized by economies of scale and
  standardization. Variety, when it existed,
  occurred within the same family of materials e.g.
  metals, plastics, ceramics, etc., not by creating
  a new family. In economic terms, the lack of
  variety of these "commodity" materials reflected
  rigidity in the processes of production.

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• In the present transition period toward a new
  techno-economic paradigm, this situation is
  changing. Competition may still end up with a
  radical substitution of one material for another,
  but increasingly frequently it is a new
  complementary association of materials that
  presents the best technical solution. The new
  forms of utilization are as varied as the objects
  to which they are applied.
• Often, several new materials compete with each
  other in offering alternative technical solutions
  for a particular technical device the variety is
  both within and between families of materials.
  This movement toward diversification expresses
  itself in the multiplication of groups,
  subgroups, classes, grades, and nuances of
  materials.
• Never before has mankind had available such an
  enormous number of materials for instance, a
  limited number of basic polymers offer users
  countless different technical solutions by their
  innumerable combinations, mixtures, or alloys and
  by the incorporation of several liquid, solid,
  and fibrous additives.

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• The revolution in information technology greatly
  facilitates the rethinking and production of
  objects made from complex materials. Most often,
  the use of advance material involves the complete
  redesign of the object instead of simple
  piecemeal substitution. Programmable
  micro-electronics-based equipment assists the
  processing of materials that often acquire their
  final shape and composition within the object
  itself. The close integration of design and
  production functions within the firm has made it
  economically possible to produce objects that are
  conceived at the same time as their constituent
  materials.
• Attempts by firms to achieve greater flexibility
  in product and process design are often
  associated with the preconception of the object
  and modification of the materials used, revealing
  a close correlation between the will to adapt to
  a changing economic environment, the increase in
  technical flexibility of productive capital, the
  introduction of information technologies, and the
  exploitation of a large variety of materials.
• This correlation shows that advance materials
  technology is intrinsically coherent with the
  "best practice" guidelines of the new
  techno-economic paradigm, and it expresses the
  tendency towards a deep transformation of the
  materials industry, which is increasingly
  becoming a service industry where producers sell
  "solutions" to a client's global problem, a sort
  of "kit" designed to respond to a desired
  "function," rather than a "material" in the
  proper sense.
• This "functionalization" of the materials market
  is consequently accompanied by a "tertiarization"
  of employment in the materials industry, leading
  to a necessary integration and interfacing of
  know-how and skills, to a new division of labour
  both within and among enterprises, and to the
  emergence of new firms and industries.

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• The multiplicity of variants of the same material
  that producers and users must learn to handle, as
  well as the refinement of production and
  processing methods of materials, require the
  emergence of the multi-material specialist with
  fluency in many skills. For instance, the
  transformation of plastics, which traditionally
  demanded mechanical knowledge alone, now requires
  better knowledge of chemistry for design and
  control of in situ reaction techniques, and of
  electronics and computer sciences for the control
  of automatic equipment.
• The competitiveness of a firm is thus more
  determined by the efficiency with which it
  utilizes advance materials. The exploitation of
  advance materials technology has become vital for
  industry it has acquired a major economic
  importance as a generic technology, spreading
  into all industrial sectors and affecting the
  production of innumerable products and services.
• Advance materials have become remarkable vectors
  of innovation, as advances accomplished in a
  particular industry through the use of advance
  material tend to "contaminate" one by one all
  other industrial sectors.

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• The growing variety of materials production
  techniques is associated with an increase in the
  complexity of production processes. In their
  effort to minimize this increasing complexity,
  firms are compelled to integrate production
  stages, i.e. to reduce the number of phases of a
  given process (lower stocks, less maintenance),
  to reduce the number of parts in the final
  product (lower assembly costs), or else the
  production time.
• The reduction of the number of parts results, in
  turn, in the integration of several simultaneous
  functions in the material the final object is
  formally simpler, but more complex in its design,
  in its functions, and in the services it offers.
  A direct consequence of this tendency is the
  necessary development of efficient
  non-destructive testing methods to replace the
  former testing procedures based on sampling.
• The best example of integration of different
  functions in the same material is given by
  composite materials. Composites are best defined
  as the voluntary association of non-miscible or
  partly miscible materials having different
  structures, which combine and complement their
  characteristics to form a heterogeneous material
  presenting global properties and performances
  superior to those of the original constituent
  materials and suited to required functions.

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• Composites are generally formed by a matrix in
  which a different material (usually in the form
  of fibres) is embedded to reinforce the
  mechanical properties of the matrix.
• The most common composite is made of a polymeric
  matrix (epoxy resins, polyesthers, etc.) and of
  glass fibres 95 per cent of the composites used
  in industry are of this type. Other matrix
  materials used for superior technical
  performances (mainly for aeronautic, space, and
  military purposes, although applications in
  professional sports equipment and racing cars are
  increasing) are metals, carbon, or ceramics
  high-performance fibres are usually made of
  carbon, boron, (Kevlar).
• The role of the fibre is to absorb shocks and to
  give the material its mechanical resistance,
  whereas the matrix serves to distribute the
  mechanical constraints over the whole structure
  and to protect the fibres against environmental
  (mostly chemical) damage.
• The association fibre/matrix offers innumerable
  combinations of physical and chemical properties
  by modifying either the fibre/matrix constituent
  materials of the composite. By employing
  different weaving and orientation techniques of
  the fibres, it is possible to control the
  microscopic characteristics of the composite and
  to obtain combinations of properties that are
  unconceivable with primitive materials.

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NANOTECHNOLOGY

• Nano-technology involves characterizing and
  analyzing materials and structures below 100nm.
• Nano-technology research and the resulting
  commercialization have a fundamental role to play
  in any nation technological advancement.
  Nano-materials is becoming global, there is a
  world wide expression of nano-materials knowledge
  creation. Nano-materials are evolving into
  nano-fabrication and nano-templates where cost
  will drop and barriers to commercialization will
  fall At this scale, familiar materials begin to
  develop unusual properties because this is where
  the behaviour of matter is determined.
• Power Generation
• The UK Governments recent Energy Review,
  declared a long-term sustainable approach to
  supplying the UKs power supply. Looking ahead,
  those formulating our policies should not
  underestimate the ways in which nano-scale
  science is already influencing how we manage
  energy. As we are struggling to meet the rising
  energy demands using traditional methods
  declines, we must consider the important role
  nano-technology can play in the production,
  storage, conservation and delivery of energy.
• In USA the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
  (PNNL) is already using nanotechnology to develop
  materials that can store solid hydrogen and in
  turn reduce our reliance on carbon-based fuels.

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• Hydrogen is abundant in our atmosphere and has
  more energy per unit of mass than any known
  substance. Nano-tubes as a storage medium was
  discovered in 1991 which is at least 50,000 times
  thinner than a human hair and as much as 100
  times stronger than steel. No other known
  material has a higher strength-to-weight ratio.
• The challenge for storage is to maximize the
  energy available while ensuring it can be easily
  processed to generate power. Atom by atom
  manipulation means solid hydrogen can be stored
  in nano-scale pores. At this scale, the hydrogen
  retains its solid state and can easily be
  transported.
• Nano-technology is also helping wind power take
  off. There are 1,672 operational wind turbines
  in the UK, delivering 1,833 mega watts (MW) of
  power each year. That number must rise to 40,000
  MW before 2010 to meet targets set by the EU
  directive on renewable energy. Wind turbines are
  huge, rotating objects operating in wet
  conditions.
• They accumulate rain and sea water which freezes
  into ice, increasing the weight, drag, and force
  required to move the fiber glass blades. Turbine
  efficiency can drop by as much as 10 under these
  conditions.
• New coatings, at the atomic level, can help
  blades repel water. A thin film covered with
  nano-scale wax crystals, which causes water to
  quickly bead. This can be applied to turbines
  blades to make water run off before it can
  freeze.

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HEALTHCARE

• Nano-materials is becoming global, there is a
  world wide expression of nano-materials knowledge
  creation. Nano-materials are evolving to
  nano-fabrication and nano-templates where cost
  will drop and barriers to commercialization will
  fall. The Healthcare sector will benefit most
  from the wealth of knowledge that is now growing
  in the following ways
• 1. With the advent of nano-materials, it is
  possible to create new diagnostics and care
  device that move the point-of-care away from
  large institutions towards individual or local
  healthcare provision.
• 2. Delivery of drug directly to the desired
  sites in the body. Nanoparticle drug delivery
  which, through attachment to protein allows for
  higher degrees of medicinal impact eg. The
  development of functionalized six-nanometerwide
  branched particles, known as dendriners, which
  can carry various molecules on their branches,
  allows them to latch onto specific cells.
• 3. Nano-materials can be used to create
  light-weight, electrically powered mobility
  devices and new absorbent material for the
  healthcare market.

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• This will be important in perverting or
  ensuring the early detention of disease (through
  fusion of several complementary techniques
  developed from nano-material)
• 4. In the next 10 years, the development of
  biosensors and, importantly, nano-technology,
  will allow the design and fabrication of
  miniaturized clinical laboratory analyzers to a
  degree where it is possible to examine several
  laboratory measurement at the bedside with as
  little as 1micro-litre of whole blood.
• 5. Nano-enabled high through put analysis will
  also reduce the time it takes to bring new drug
  delivery plat forms to the market. In the areas
  of regenerative medicine and tissue engineering,
  nano-scaffolds will allow for high quality tissue
  repair. This will be performed by controlling
  tissue growth on a 50nm scale.
• There is a clear need to develop and educate
  a spectrum of engineers and scientists associated
  with the healthcare sector to ensure that our
  society is prepared for this nano-materials
  revolution.

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IMPACT ON DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

• For developing countries such as Nigeria, which
  are traditional suppliers of raw materials, the
  trends described above have both direct and
  indirect consequences. The direct impact is the
  decreasing amount of raw materials needed to
  manufacture a unit of industrial production.
• The indirect impact, which in the medium term
  might turn out to be by far the most significant,
  is the decrease in the technological innovation
  content of manufactured goods produced by the
  developing countries which is a negative trend,
  i.e. the competitiveness of their industry.
• The declining trend in the per unit consumption
  of raw materials in the industrialized countries
  is accelerating, through both substitution of
  synthetic for raw materials and development of
  materials-saving processing methods.
• Substitution still has a relatively minor impact,
  but it will become important in the long term
  because of the growing demand for enhanced
  performances in electronics, communications,
  information and data processing, transportation,
  energy, manufacturing, and chemical products. The
  largest changes are expected to occur in the
  replacement of metals by ceramics, polymers, and
  composites. The recent evolution of prices has
  already been extremely favourable to polymers in
  comparison with metals between 1960 and 1987,
  the average price per unit volume of the main
  metals has more than tripled, whereas on average
  the main commodity polymers less than doubled in
  price in the same period.

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• Although some low-cost producers may be able to
  increase their shares in the slowly growing world
  market for traditional materials, developing
  countries will generally continue to face
  declining real prices.
• Some Latin American and Asian developing
  countries have been carrying out research in the
  area of low-cost construction and building
  materials, as well as in alloys, polymers, and
  composites. Rare and rare-earth metals are and
  will remain essential for many scientific and
  technological developments, e.g. in
  superconductors world markets for these
  materials are projected to rise many times in the
  coming year.
• The development of ceramics is advantageous to
  Latin American and Asian countries' thanks to the
  availability of certain mineral resources like
  copper, iron, carbon, and aluminium. Developing
  countries in Asia and Latin America that have
  recently succeeded in micro-electronic components
  should enter into production of silicon and other
  semiconductor materials.
• African countries may develop materials for
  roads and for low- and middle income housing in
  rural and urban areas.

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• In short, the potential for developing countries
  to produce materials of higher purity necessary
  for high technology industries exists and should
  be exploited.
• Producers of primary materials should therefore
  reconsider their policies concerning materials
  technology development with the objective of
  shifting the production of traditional raw
  materials to more knowledge-intensive or advance
  materials. Some are already doing so.
• The main impact of the present trends in new
  materials is most likely to be felt by developing
  countries in the medium term, through the loss of
  competitive power of many of their manufactured
  products, which will increasingly have to compete
  with innovative products presenting higher
  functional integration or offering novel
  functions and 'services," manufactured by advance
  material" firms in the industrialized countries.
• Thank you.