Identifying The Materials Of The Future
From biodegradable plastics to nanoscale structures, new materials will transform the way we live – if we can develop and produce them at scale.
From the stone age to the bronze age, from the iron age to the current silicon age, materials define, at the most fundamental level, what we can do as a technology-using species. There’s a reason that archaeology uses these terms to talk about the past, and that’s because materials define the shape and capabilities of civilization.
And in our present moment, advances in materials science can offer radical solutions to our most pressing challenges – by re-engineering the world up from the smallest possible particles, giving rise to brand new products and innovative manufacturing processes built on the back of new, futuristic materials.
“What is happening in materials innovation is going on at a very small atomic and molecular scale. But it is going to impact our lives on a global scale,” says Philippe Loeb, Vice President, Consumer Packaged Goods & Retail and Home & Lifestyle Industry, Dassault Systèmes. “The products are ultimately just going to be atoms and molecules which were already in existence. It’s just about how they are reimagined and reconfigured with science.”
It’s a field that has seen lively development. From plant-based plastics to cutting-edge nanoscale structures, oxygen-breathing ceramics to new uses for old stalwarts like wood, the materials landscape of the 2020s is an exciting and dynamic one.
It’s getting a big push from governments as well. In November 2022 alone, the UK government announced £95 million (roughly \\\$108 million) in funding for new materials research, including 3D bioprinting for use in tissue engineering and casing for nuclear reactors.
Continue reading about this trend here.
Read the series of manufacturing trends here.
https://www.3ds.com/manufacturing/trends
