Materials professionals must know the birth history of 17 new materials

Latest update time：2017-07-14

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Introduction: New materials support the rapid development of high technology, promote social civilization and progress, and enrich people's ever-changing material and spiritual life. However, the accidental discovery of magical materials is more exciting and inspiring, and it will inspire people to learn, work and live more meaningfully.

The unexpected discovery of new materials, their successful development, and their practical application are by no means the result of the researchers being too lucky! This is inseparable from their keen observation ability, rigorous logical thinking, in-depth and dedicated research, superb experimental skills, and valuable innovative spirit.

Below, New Materials Online will take you through a review of those interesting stories about the birth of moving materials.

Superconducting materials

In 1911, Dutch physicist Onnes discovered that the electrical resistance of mercury suddenly dropped to a very small value (10) at 4K when studying the low-temperature properties of metallic mercury. When he added a large amount of impurities to the mercury, it had no effect on its transition to a state of extremely low resistance at liquid helium temperature. This shows that the resistance of some solids tends to zero at low temperatures, which is an inherent physical property of these solids. Through experiments, it was discovered that the resistance of some solids is close to zero at low temperatures. When electric current flows in these solids, there is no resistance and no electrical energy is consumed. In 1913, Onnes first called this state a superconducting state, and Professor Onnes won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physics. People call this zero resistance phenomenon superconductivity, and substances with superconductivity are called superconducting materials.

Research progress: At present, 28 kinds of (metal elements or simple substances) have been found to have superconductivity, such as zirconium, molybdenum, niobium, etc.; there are thousands of superconducting compounds and superconducting alloys, such as lanthanum barium copper oxide, niobium germanium alloy, etc.

Application areas: superconducting computers, superconducting maglev trains, superconducting cars, electromagnetic propulsion ships, superconducting cables, superconducting engines and lossless transformers.

Superplastic Alloy

In 1920, German researcher Rosenhein discovered that zinc-aluminum-copper alloy, unlike ordinary metals, had temporary high plasticity after cold rolling. This was considered a strange phenomenon by the engineering community at the time. In 1945, Soviet scholar Bauchivar conducted an in-depth study of this strange phenomenon and found a particularly remarkable ductility in many non-ferrous metal alloys.

Research progress: At present, more than 200 superplastic alloys have been discovered in the world, such as superplastic copper alloy (Cu-38Zn), superplastic zinc alloy (Zn-22Al-0.2Cu), superplastic aluminum alloy (A1-6Cu-Zr), etc.

Application areas: Used to manufacture missiles, complex components of artificial satellites, electronic instrument parts, automobile casings, etc.

Silent Metal

In the early 1950s, when the British were studying alloys, they accidentally dropped a manganese-copper alloy ingot containing 80% manganese on the ground. The experimenters only heard a faint sound. The unexpected phenomenon aroused their great interest. They conducted in-depth research on it and finally obtained a manganese-copper-aluminum-iron-nickel alloy with vibration-damping properties. They called it "silent alloy" or "vibration-damping alloy."

Research progress: Dozens of vibration-damping alloys have been introduced, such as cobalt-nickel alloy, magnesium-zirconium alloy, nickel-titanium alloy and iron-zirconium-aluminum alloy.

Application areas: aerospace, automobile manufacturing, civil engineering, machinery manufacturing, train wheels, household appliances, etc.

Unbreakable glass

One day in 1903, French chemist Benedictis finished his experiment and accidentally knocked a flat-bottomed flask off a 3m high instrument stand while cleaning the laboratory. It did not break when it fell to the ground, but was covered with cracks. Because he was busy with other experiments, he put a note on the flask and placed it in the corner. Soon, Benedictis saw a car accident in the newspaper: a bus crashed into a building, and the fragments of the window glass injured the driver and passengers. The reporter called for the urgent need to develop a car window glass that would not hurt people even if it broke. So Benedictis immediately took out the flask with the note on it in the corner and started to study it. He found that it was a flask that had been filled with nitrocellulose solution, and there was a layer of film on the wall of the flask, so it did not break. He was deeply inspired by this and thought of making the film and glass "closely combined" and developed a new type of "laminated glass".

Research progress: At present, many types of laminated glass have been successfully developed. According to the different materials sandwiched in the middle, it can be divided into: paper sandwich, cloth sandwich, plant sandwich, wire sandwich, silk sandwich, metal wire sandwich and many other types; according to the different bonding methods between the interlayers, it can be divided into: mixed method laminated glass, dry method laminated glass, hollow laminated glass; according to the different types of interlayers, it can be divided into: general laminated glass and bulletproof glass.

Application areas: aviation windshield, automobile windshield, architectural glass.

Memory Alloy

In 1958, while studying nickel-titanium alloy, Buller, a metallurgist at the U.S. Naval Ordnance Laboratory, accidentally discovered that nickel-titanium alloy rods collided at different temperatures and made a crisp sound, but after cooling to room temperature, they made a dull and slow sound. He was keenly aware that temperature may have a great influence on the organizational structure and hardness of the alloy. In 1963, in an experiment, he took the curved nickel-titanium alloy wires from the warehouse, which were inconvenient to use, so he straightened these alloy wires one by one before the experiment, and then did the experiment. An amazing phenomenon appeared. When the experimental temperature rose to a certain value, these originally straightened alloy wires suddenly turned into a curved shape without exception. Repeated experiments yielded the same results. They also found that no matter how straight the nickel-titanium alloy wires were pulled, when the temperature reached a certain value, that is, the transition temperature, they would return to their original curved shape. Scientists call this phenomenon the shape memory effect, and alloys with this effect are called shape memory alloys, or "memory alloys" for short.

Research progress: Scientists added other elements to nickel-titanium alloys and further developed new nickel-titanium shape memory alloys such as chrysinium-copper, titanium-nickel-iron, and titanium-nickel-chromium. In addition, there are other types of shape memory alloys, such as: copper-nickel alloys, copper-aluminum alloys, copper-zinc alloys, iron alloys (Fe-Mn-Si, Fe-Pd), etc.

Application areas: There are also broad application prospects in bioengineering, medicine, energy and automation.

Conductive plastics

One day in 1970, Professor Hideki Shirakawa of the University of Tsukuba in Japan asked one of his Korean graduate students to make polyacetylene from acetylene. Because the student's Japanese was not very good, he misheard the instructor's request for the amount of catalyst to be added in the experiment, and ended up adding nearly 100 times the amount of catalyst that should be used. However, this mistake actually brought about a miracle, and a silvery film was obtained, which was a little conductive and looked like metal. In fact, polyacetylene should be a black powder. Since Professor Hideki Shirakawa knew that his own strength was not enough to solve many marginal problems, he publicly stated that he was willing to cooperate with scientists from all walks of life. In 1977, when Shirakawa Hideki was studying this plastic film with McDiarmid, a physics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, he found that if iodine was added during the polymerization of acetylene, the resulting polyacetylene would be golden yellow and its conductivity would be increased by 30 million times.

Research progress: Professor Nallmann of the former Federal Republic of Germany obtained polyacetylene using the Shirakawa Hideki catalyst system, and immediately carried out special aging and stretching orientation treatment, and then doped the polyacetylene film. The resulting material has an electrical conductivity three orders of magnitude higher than that of iodine-doped materials. Nallmann's polyacetylene has an electrical conductivity close to that of copper. Conductive polymers have now been used to make light-emitting diodes, and have also been used in sensors, electromagnetic shielding, catalysis, and other fields.

Application areas: antistatic additives, computer anti-electromagnetic screens, smart windows, light-emitting diodes, solar cells, mobile phones, miniature TV screens and even life science research.

Hydrogen Storage Alloys

One day in 1974, researchers at the Panasonic Central Research Institute in Japan put titanium-manganese alloy and hydrogen into a container and were surprised to find that the pressure of hydrogen actually dropped from 1013.325kPa to 101.325kPa. The reduced hydrogen was "eaten" by the titanium-manganese alloy, and the "appetite" was quite large. The hydrogen eaten by the titanium-manganese alloy was 1000 to 3000 times larger than itself. Because this alloy will absorb a lot of hydrogen like a sponge absorbs water under certain temperature and pressure, it is called "hydrogen storage alloy" or "hydrogen sponge".

Research progress: A variety of hydrogen storage alloys have been successfully developed, such as TiFe, ZrMn, LaNi, etc., which can store hydrogen and release hydrogen. Researchers have also developed methods to purify or refine hydrogen using hydrogen storage alloys; they envision introducing hydrogen storage alloys into automobiles and kitchen equipment as hydrogen fuel, which is both environmentally friendly and efficient.

Application areas: hydrogen storage, purification and recovery, hydrogen fuel engines, thermal-pressure sensors and hydrothermal actuators, hydrogen isotope separation and applications in nuclear reactors, air conditioning, heat pumps and heat storage, hydrogenation and dehydrogenation reaction catalysts, hydride-nickel batteries.

Stainless steel

During World War I, a metal expert was asked to study the problem of gun barrels being damaged by "rust" after being fired for a period of time. In his research, he used several new alloy steels with a high chromium content. However, the gun barrels made of this new "chrome steel" broke into pieces after the first shot. The pieces were thrown into the scrap heap, and after a week or two, the expert noticed that among the rusty scrap metal pieces, the fragments of the chrome steel gun barrel were still shining like the original. The great advantages of "stainless steel" were discovered by chance.

Research progress: There are more than one hundred types of industrial stainless steel, and each developed stainless steel has good performance in its specific application field.

Application areas : construction applications, food processing, catering, brewing and chemical industries.

Metallic Glass

In 1959, Duwez of California Institute of Technology discovered this new material by chance when studying whether two elements with extremely different crystal structures and valences could form a solid solution. He sprayed a high-temperature gold-silicon alloy melt onto a high-speed rotating copper roller, and quickly cooled the melt at a cooling rate of one million degrees per second, thus preparing opaque glass for the first time. When a physicist at the time saw this material, he mocked it and said it was a "stupid alloy."

Research progress: Metallic glass is one of the strongest and softest metal materials to date. The strongest cobalt-based metallic glass has a record strength of 6.0 GPa, and the softest strontium-based metallic glass has a strength as low as 300 MPa.

Application areas: In the aerospace field, satellites now collect solar energy to maintain the extension mechanism of the operation; metallic glass can be used to manufacture kinetic energy armor-piercing and armor-piercing bullets. Voltage transformer core; watch cases, high-end mobile phones, laptop cases, and applications in important automotive parts.

New Industrial Polymers

Developer Jeannette Garcia was developing another plastic when the solvent in the container suddenly hardened. She finally smashed the container with a hammer, but the mysterious material was not damaged. She didn't know how to replicate this plastic, so she joined IBM's computer chemistry group and used IBM's supercomputer to reverse the preparation process and finally got the reaction mechanism. This plastic is called PHT.

Research progress: This is a new type of plastic, or more accurately a polymer, which is harder than bone, has a weight similar to that of ordinary plastic of the same volume, has the ability to be reshaped, and is 100% recyclable.

Application areas: New polymer materials have a wide range of potential uses, including in aerospace, new technologies, semiconductors and other industries.

Polytetrafluoroethylene

In 1938, chemist Roy Plunkett, who was hoping to create a new fluorocarbon, returned to his lab to check on an experiment he had conducted in a freezer. He checked a container that was supposed to be filled with gas, but found that the gas had disappeared, leaving only some white spots on the container wall. Plunkett was very interested in these mysterious chemicals and started to experiment again. Eventually, the new substance was confirmed to be a strange lubricant with an extremely high melting point, which was very suitable for use in military equipment. Today, this substance is widely used in non-stick pans.

Research progress: A series of polytetrafluoroethylene non-stick coatings have been successfully developed and are widely used as high and low temperature resistant, corrosion resistant materials, insulating materials, anti-stick coatings, etc.

Application areas : instruments, meters, construction, textiles, metal surface treatment, etc.

OLED

The research of OLED originated from an accidental discovery. One night in 1979, Dr. CW Tang, a Chinese American scientist working in Kodak, suddenly remembered that he had forgotten something in the laboratory on his way home. After returning home, he found a bright object in the dark. He turned on the light and found that it was an organic battery used in the experiment that was glowing. What was going on? OLED research began, and Dr. Deng was also known as the father of OLED.

Research progress: OLED products have moved from the laboratory to the market. From 1997 to 1999, the only market for OLED displays was in car displays. After 2000, the application range of products gradually expanded to mobile phone displays. The application of OLED in mobile phones has greatly promoted the further development of its technology and the rapid expansion of its application range, posing a strong challenge to existing LCDs, LEDs and VFDs.

Application areas: 3G communication, military and special purposes, flexible displays and many other fields.

Hard aluminum

In 1906, German scientist Wilm intended to observe the effect of heat treatment on an aluminum alloy containing 3.5% copper and 0.5% magnesium. However, the alloy after treatment did not harden as expected. He threw the alloy aside. But a few days later, he doubted his experiment and decided to redo it. As a result, he was surprised to find that the strength and hardness of the alloy treated a few days ago had been greatly enhanced. He thus discovered the phenomenon of age hardening and produced hard aluminum.

Research progress: Heat treatment can strengthen aluminum alloys, including aluminum-copper-magnesium and aluminum-copper-manganese alloys. These alloys have good strength and heat resistance, but their corrosion resistance is not as good as pure aluminum and rust-proof aluminum alloys. Adding iron and nickel to the aluminum-copper-magnesium system can develop a forging alloy with good high-temperature strength and process performance. The aluminum-copper-manganese alloy has good process performance and is easy to weld. It is mainly used for heat-resistant weldable structural materials and forgings.

Application fields : This type of alloy is widely used in various components and rivet materials. It is also widely used in shipbuilding, construction and other departments.

Graphene

In 2004, two scientists from the University of Manchester in the UK, Andre Gem and Kostya Novoselov, discovered that they could use a very simple method to obtain increasingly thin graphite flakes. They peeled off graphite flakes from graphite, and then stuck both sides of the flakes on a special tape. By tearing off the tape, the graphite flakes could be split in two. By doing this repeatedly, the flakes became thinner and thinner, and finally, they obtained a flake consisting of only one layer of carbon atoms, which is graphene. After this, new methods for preparing graphene emerged one after another. After five years of development, people found that it was not far away to bring graphene into the field of industrial production. Therefore, the two won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010.

Research progress: The large-scale production technology of graphene microsheets has matured, and the research and development results of downstream applications of graphene microsheets are emerging in an endless stream. The large-scale production technology of single-layer graphene has not yet been realized.

Application areas: In the next five years, there will be explosive growth in optoelectronic displays, semiconductors, touch screens, electronic devices, energy storage batteries, displays, sensors, semiconductors, aerospace, military industry, composite materials, biomedicine and other fields.

nanomaterials

One day in 1980, German physicist Grant traveled to Australia. When he drove across the Australian desert alone, the empty, lonely and solitary environment made his mind particularly active and sharp. He has been engaged in the research of crystal materials for a long time and knows that the grain size of crystals has a great influence on the performance of materials. The smaller the grain, the higher the strength. Grant's above assumptions are just general laws of materials. His ideas are getting deeper and deeper. If the grains of the crystals that make up the material are only a few nanometers in size, what will the material look like? Perhaps there will be "earth-shaking" changes! After returning to China with these ideas, Grant immediately began to experiment. After nearly 4 years of hard work, he finally produced ultrafine powders of only a few nanometers in size in 1984, including ultrafine powders of various metals, inorganic compounds and organic compounds.

Research progress: Both basic theoretical research on nanotechnology and applied research such as new material development have achieved rapid development. In terms of industrial development, except for the initial large-scale production of nanopowder materials in a few countries such as the United States, Japan, and China, products such as nanobiomaterials, nanoelectronic device materials, and nanomedical diagnostic materials are still in the development and research stage.

Application areas: traditional materials, medical equipment, electronic equipment, coatings, etc.

rubber

In 1493, when Italian navigator Columbus explored America for the second time, he saw Indians playing with balls made of latex from trees, and the balls bounced high when they fell to the ground. In 1736, French scientist Condamine, who participated in the South American scientific expedition, brought back some rubber products and relevant information about rubber trees from Peru to France, detailing the origin of rubber trees, the methods of collecting latex by local residents, and the process of making pots and shoes from rubber. In 1819, Scottish chemist Mackintosh discovered that rubber can be dissolved by coal tar. Since then, people have begun to dissolve rubber with coal tar, turpentine, etc. to make waterproof cloth. The world's first rubber factory was established in Glasgow, England in 1820.

Research progress : Traditional rubber technology is already very mature and is currently developing in two directions: improving quality and reducing consumption, and achieving high performance and low cost.

Application areas: daily-use, medical and other light industrial rubber products; rubber production equipment or rubber parts for heavy industries and emerging industries such as mining, transportation, construction, machinery, and electronics.

3M water sandpaper

In 1920, Francis Okie, a young man from Philadelphia, lived next door to a glass factory. He saw sanders polishing glass with sandpaper in a dusty environment all day long, and he couldn't help but worry about the health of the sanders. Does sanding have to be dusty? Francis suddenly had an inspiration - if there was sandpaper for sanding with water, the dust would definitely be reduced a lot! Francis immediately wrote to 3M, a well-known company in the mineral sand industry at the time, to ask for sanding samples and began to study water sandpaper.

Research progress: Water sandpaper is now available in sanding workshops around the world.

Application areas: grinding metal, wood and other surfaces to make them smooth and clean.

Source | New Materials Online

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