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Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Materials (1984)

Chapter: 4. Societal Needs and Future Opportunities

« Previous: 3. Summary of Scientific and Technological Accomplishments
Suggested Citation:"4. Societal Needs and Future Opportunities." National Research Council. 1984. Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Materials. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10846.
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4.
SOCIETAL NEEDS AND FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES

The examples of achievements presented in the previous chapter are but a prelude to those that SACAM can yield in the future. Advanced materials are increasingly important to the development of new technologies, and the preparation of well-characterized advanced materials is the limiting factor to progress in many critical areas. In addition to these technology-driven opportunities, there are also science-driven opportunities. Frequently, strong basic interest in new materials and techniques for synthesis and characterization leads to advances in understanding the chemical and physical properties of solids.

Here, we discuss some of these technology- and science-driven opportunities.

I. TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN OPPORTUNITIES

A. Energy

It is increasingly clear that an ever-larger fraction of our resources is going into the production, conversion, storage, and conservation of energy. The survival of our technological society depends on the more efficient use of energy resources and the development of environmentally sound new resources. Some opportunities in energy research and development where advanced materials can be expected to play a key role are the following:

  • Heterogeneous Catalysis. In spite of the critical role catalysis plays in many processes, for example, petroleum refining, polymerization, and processes relevant to autocatalysis and fuel cells, little is known

Suggested Citation:"4. Societal Needs and Future Opportunities." National Research Council. 1984. Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Materials. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10846.
×

about the active sites or species in commercial catalysts. If we are to develop advanced catalysts to handle the feed stocks of the future, which will include dirtier crudes, tar sands, the products of coal liquefaction, and shale, a well-planned, rapidly moving program in catalyst characterization must be undertaken. The methodology for the effective synthesis of new materials must advance concurrently. Catalysts are required to convert carbonaceous residues to useful liquids, crack large molecules, remove sulfur and nitrogen, and convert bad oxygen (e.g., phenol) to good oxygen (e.g., tertiary alcohols, ethers). To be effective, catalysts must be highly selective, so that, for example, hydrogen consumption is minimized and environmentally and economically undesirable byproducts are not formed. Heterogeneous catalysts that will minimize undesirable combustion products, such as NOx and SOx, are needed. The efficient production of chemicals, such as ammonia and propylene oxide, also depends on superior catalysts, as does the conversion of coal-gasification products to useful products.

  • Electrochemical Material. Electrochemical processes, such as those used in chlorine and aluminum manufacturing, consume large amounts of electrical energy; therefore, more efficient processes should be developed, and some of these (e.g., air cathodes in the chloralkali cells) require new materials. In addition, whole technologies, such as those on which electric vehicles are based, are limited by the lack of suitable batteries, which, in turn, stems from a lack of appropriate electrolyte materials. Much effort has been expended in the last few years on such exotic materials as β-alumina and TiS2. These and related efforts must be continued if high-power and -energy density batteries are to be developed. The electrochemical synthesis of organic chemicals also requires improvements in the activity and selectivity of electrocatalytic materials.

  • Solar Energy. Progress in solar photovoltaic and photothermal devices is critically dependent on SACAM. In particular, the development of low-cost solar cells of sufficiently high efficiency through the perfection of new processing techniques for the active components is crucial to the achievement of a practical and economical photovoltaic power system. Improvements are also needed in inactive construction materials and mirrors to achieve cost reductions and longer lifetime while maintaining or improving system efficiency.

Suggested Citation:"4. Societal Needs and Future Opportunities." National Research Council. 1984. Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Materials. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10846.
×
  • Hydrogen Utilization and Storage. The use of hydrogen as a fuel depends in part on the development of improved storage media. These must have the attributes of the lanthanum nickel materials (LaNi5) without their weight and cost limitations. Also, to facilitate the routine use of hydrogen as a fuel, containment (piping) materials that are impervious to hydrogen and resistant to embrittlement must be found.

  • Materials for Energy Conservation. There are many areas where energy conservation could be achieved through weight reduction and more efficient processes. Vehicle efficiency could be substantially increased if lighter materials meeting present engineering criteria could be developed without significant cost increases. One example is new synthetic routes to graphite-reinforced plastics and a variety of other composites.

Other opportunites in energy conservation, such as improved lamp envelopes and phosphors, also depend on the availability of new advanced materials.

Materials that will withstand high temperatures and hostile environments have many potential applications, particularly in the construction of turbines for use in magnetohydrodynamic, geothermal, and nuclear power generation and ocean thermal energy conversion. Operation at high temperatures can lead to increased thermodynamic efficiency, and operation in hostile environments is a necessary part of these comparatively exotic power-generation technologies. The availability and characterization of materials such as nitrides, carbides, silicides, super alloys, and composites could well determine future advances in these technologies.

B. Electronic Materials for Communications, Data Processing, Control, and Automation

Synthesis and characterization of advanced electronic materials have played and will continue to play a key role in communications, data processing, process control, and automation. Probably the foremost driving force is the continuing increase in the scale of integration of integrated circuits. Less costly dataprocessing and increased processing capabilities will result from putting more circuit functions on a single chip. At present, large-scale integration (LSI) circuits have brought 262-kbit memories close to being standard commercial items. The packing density in silicon

Suggested Citation:"4. Societal Needs and Future Opportunities." National Research Council. 1984. Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Materials. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10846.
×

integrated circuits has been doubling approximately every 2 years. For this trend to continue, advanced materials will be required, and it is not clear that the materials now used, such as the SiO2 insulator and photoresist families, will be adequate.

There is a need for insulator materials less subject to pinhole formation, that is, materials that can be made in thinner layers more reproducibly and that have lower imperfect ion densities. Extensive investigation of silicon-nitrogen chemistry might result in the synthesis of such materials. Silicide chemistry and preparative activities in general are ripe for SACAM contributions, which could be the key to a new generation of very-large-scale integration. In the case of photoresists, chemical properties can be controlled by radiation exposure. However, as sizes decrease, the diffraction limit of light will become increasingly restrictive. Accordingly, much SACAM research is directed toward the development of organic polymeric materials with properties that are altered by exposure to light, x rays, and electron beams. The hope is that appropriate resist materials for integrated-circuit features in the micrometer and submicrometer regions can be realized from these studies. All of these activities require careful synthesis and characterization; they appear to be essential to future progress in integrated-circuit technology.

The role of SACAM in the development of low-loss and high-bandwidth optical fibers is well known. However, new families of materials might have losses and dispersion orders of magnitude lower than the silicate-based glasses now used for optical fibers. The impact would be substantial if repeater spacings could be much greater than is now possible.

The new need for conservation of and substitution for critical materials increases in electronics and other areas. Shortages and prohibitive costs affect the users of materials as varied as Sn, Co, Hg, and Au. As an example of the contribution SACAM can make, recent alloy research has provided magnetic alloys that use half as much Co while retaining the magnetic properties of alnico.

Other opportunities for SACAM in electronics include high-speed circuit elements, such as Josephson logic junctions, and new display materials, such as liquid crystals, which could provide cheaper interfaces and open a much larger market for optical fibers and large-scale integration. In spite of its remarkable contributions,

Suggested Citation:"4. Societal Needs and Future Opportunities." National Research Council. 1984. Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Materials. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10846.
×

the impact of electronics on technology is just beginning, as is the impact of SACAM on electronics.

II. SCIENCE-DRIVEN OPPORTUNITIES

In the last two or three decades, much of the progress in the study and application of advanced materials originated in industrial laboratories; examples include semiconductor materials, intercalation compounds, and ionic conductors. In these and other cases, the materials involved were relatively simple solids, and, accordingly, one might have expected academic research to play a larger role. Apparently the amount of university-based research was limited because, in many cases, the opportunities in SACAM research appeared to be technology-driven. The situation now is quite different; of the great variety of opportunities in SACAM research, many are substantially science-driven. Thus the prospects for SACAM research to be recognized as a legitimate and intellectually exciting area of academic research and, concomitantly for high-caliber faculty and students to be attracted to it, are much greater than in the past. What is needed is a broader awareness in the scientific community of the challenges and opportunities of SACAM.

The basic science underlying many areas of interest to SACAM is poorly understood; examples include catalytic activity, diffusion in superionic materials, the band structure of amorphous materials and defect solids, surface and interfacial properties of solids, the properties of very small particles, and the basis of phase stability and bonding in binary and ternary solids. In addition, there is need for new and more powerful theoretical and computational tools to provide greater interpretive and predictive capabilities in SACAM.

Let us consider one of these challenges—solid-state ionics—where the implications are manifold. Solid-state ionics is the study of the role of ionic properties, in particular ionic motion, in determining the overall properties of a solid. Little is known about (a) why ions in some solids show ionic conductivities orders of magnitude higher than others, (b) what can be predicted about diffusion in coupled solids of known structure, and (c) how to produce a solid through molecular engineering that will give a desired level of ionic mobility. Ionic mobility is critical in synthesis and in many technologically important areas, including corrosion of metals,

Suggested Citation:"4. Societal Needs and Future Opportunities." National Research Council. 1984. Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Materials. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10846.
×

hydrogen embrittlement, semiconductor composition, solar-cell junctions, hydrogen storage materials, oxidation catalysts, battery electrodes and electrolytes, and electrochromic devices.

There are many examples of new materials that had little obvious application when initially investigated. It is in just such areas of basic research that break-throughs can yield immense technological benefits. Some of the areas in which there is substantial basic interest and that show promise for future applications are less-than-three-dimensional solids, anisotropic solids in general, metal-organic compounds, particularly those of interest to the organometallic chemistry community, very small clusters of atoms, grain boundaries, interfaces, and other sources of inhomogeneity. Often the generation of new approaches and tools for synthesis is critical to the force that science can exert; the same can be said of new techniques and tools for characterization. Thus, for example, low-temperature techniques, including quenching and reactive sputtering, have not been exploited for many classes of materials, and more extensive use of these techniques by the SACAM community should be encouraged. The synthesis and characterization of totally new and unforeseen types of solid-state materials is important not only for providing the source materials for future applications and devices but for developing further the intellectual and scientific framework of materials chemistry. The few current programs directed along these lines are comparatively small and isolated.

It is generally acknowledged that many of the problems that today endanger our standard of living, and perhaps our physical well-being, will be solved only by advanced research and technology. SACAM offers the possibility of giant advances in many fields.

Suggested Citation:"4. Societal Needs and Future Opportunities." National Research Council. 1984. Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Materials. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10846.
×
Page 18
Suggested Citation:"4. Societal Needs and Future Opportunities." National Research Council. 1984. Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Materials. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10846.
×
Page 19
Suggested Citation:"4. Societal Needs and Future Opportunities." National Research Council. 1984. Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Materials. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10846.
×
Page 20
Suggested Citation:"4. Societal Needs and Future Opportunities." National Research Council. 1984. Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Materials. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10846.
×
Page 21
Suggested Citation:"4. Societal Needs and Future Opportunities." National Research Council. 1984. Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Materials. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10846.
×
Page 22
Suggested Citation:"4. Societal Needs and Future Opportunities." National Research Council. 1984. Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Materials. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10846.
×
Page 23
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