Silicon anode batteries made from nanomaterials; recyclable carbon nanotubes; living tissues and organs created in laboratories… The impact of supermaterials on our lives has already begun.

Health is the area where the evolution of materials science and engineering is most impactful.

Will it be possible to create new artificial organs? Will implants be possible that, once placed in our body, are absorbed and at the same time regenerated with our own bone? Will it be possible to personalize any implant to the limits of the diameter of our arteries? Will it be possible to replicate diseases in artificial organs to test treatments before experimenting on living beings? Will we achieve the dream of eternal youth?

The answer is yes. Not only is it possible, but we will soon see it.

The revolution of implants and artificial tissues

The HUMANeye project team has developed and tested a shape-memory corneal implant. It is made of nitinol, a nickel-titanium alloy that is already used in stents , dental wires, orthopedic screws and other surgical supplies. The results of HUMANeye are a key to solving corneal diseases, one of the main causes of blindness worldwide.

But the doors that shape memory materials open go much further. The shape memory alloys market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.2% from 2022 to 2029 .

An innovative example of this technological advancement has been presented at the Hannover Messe: the world’s first refrigerator that cools itself using artificial muscles made of nitinol .

Nitinol implants are already being manufactured in laboratories with a personalized shape for each patient thanks to 3D printing. These implants self-expand once installed and avoid subsequent, often aggressive, treatments after the first surgery.

4D printing of memory materials allows the manufactured part to evolve over time in both shape and composition . This revolutionary process promises new opportunities in tissue regeneration and reconstructive surgery.

Bioprinting combines cells and biomaterials to create living tissues and organs that can be used to replace damaged or aged structures, as well as to replace animal models in drug trials or in the generation of disease models.

The creation of artificial tissues ( such as bioinspired tendons ) is already a reality.

Batteries with more memory from nanomaterials

Finally, nanomaterials will reach industry with the development of new batteries and new composite materials.

Using silicon nanofibers, anodes for Li-ion batteries can be manufactured with much greater storage capacity than the graphite anodes currently used (which is also a critical material) and requires many more recharging cycles.

These anodes are built from a product that is like a sheet of paper and is already a reality that is being manufactured in a pilot plant at the IMDEA Materials Institute spin-off Floatech . But the innovations in Li-Ion batteries go beyond the materials that make up the anode and the cathode. The use of nanoparticles makes it possible to avoid (or mitigate) the risk of deflagration of both the electrolytes and the casings .

Recyclable carbon nanotubes

Progress is also being made on one of the problems considered “endemic” to carbon nanotubes: their recycling.

A work recently published in the prestigious Carbon magazine advances the possibility of recycling them following the same scheme as a LEGOⓇ construction.

Recycled nanotubes could be returned to their initial state, like building blocks. They could be dissolved and turned into liquid crystalline solutions, which could then be spun into a new, high-quality fiber.

These advances, as well as the development of “more” recyclable polymers , open the future to new composite materials that will contribute, among other things, to promoting a more sustainable aeronautical sector.

Nanomaterials will also help develop sensors that allow us to monitor any structural damage that may occur during flight . All of this will lead to more sustainable and much safer aircraft.

Ductile, resistant and multifunctional materials at the same time

The emergence of high-entropy alloys in 2004 opened many avenues for development , putting the entire periodic table in the hands of those of us who design alloys.

Today we are very close to using these alloys to produce improvements in areas as diverse as the high temperature required in an aircraft engine and developing special magnetic and/or electrical properties, which are essential in the development of new ways of generating energy.

High-entropy alloys allow us to develop materials that were unthinkable not long ago . We are getting closer to the dream of what not long ago was a contradiction: materials that are both strong and ductile .

Beyond the substance itself: metamaterials

When we can no longer go any further by modifying the chemical composition of a material, we can play with giving its basic components arrangements that give it exceptional properties. And so metamaterials emerge.

We can modify the surface of a material by creating structures that force waves to move, deviate, reflect… In this way, we can obtain invisible materials (if we manipulate light), or materials that are undetectable by radar, or that completely isolate noise. By manipulating the internal architecture of the material, we can obtain unpredictable mechanical properties. These are truly materials that border on magic .

AI speeds up everything

All materials development at this time is supported by three basic pillars: new manufacturing techniques (with special relevance to 3D printing), the emergence of AI, and that all development has to be aligned with sustainability and the efficient use of raw materials.

The number of studies applying artificial intelligence to materials science has grown at a rate of 1.67 times per year over the past decade. But sustainability means things are not so simple now.

For any development, we must consider what metals we have available on the planet. In addition, we must consider many more design criteria that were not previously considered. For example, if we thought about strength, this was at the expense of ductility, and we did not consider that the same material could have multiple functions.

With all this, in this 21st century the number of combinations of variables is immense. And that is where AI comes in to make everything, or almost everything, possible.

Materials science is expanding like wildfire and its impact is already transforming us. New year, new challenges.

Author Bio: Jose Manuel Torralba is a Professor at the Carlos III University of Madrid