The transformations occurring in the energy, automotive, logistics, manufacturing, and construction industries, in combination with evolving industry 4.0 innovations, drive demand for new materials. The material trends range from solutions for sustainability, light-weighting, 3D printing, and surface engineering, as well as the development of intelligent materials, nano-formulations, and advanced composites with enhanced characteristics.
Further, the widespread adoption of AI, ML, and data management practices invigorates scientists to explore and develop innovative materials much faster. This accelerates the time-to-market of trending materials from a couple of decades to just a few years.
Top 10 Materials Industry Trends in 2024
1. Sustainable Materials
The immense volume of waste generated during the use and production of materials forces governments to draft various environmental regulations. Practically all industries face challenges while rearranging their internal processes from the perspective of materials’ lifecycle
2. Responsive & Smart Materials
In order to comply with the requirements of certain industrial use cases, novel materials currently in development possess application-specific characteristics. Advancements in materials science enable smart materials with programmable properties that behave or respond to stimuli from external factors.
3. Nanotechnology
Advancements in nanotechnology show that the characteristics of materials at a nanoscale differ from those of their bulk equivalents. The proliferation of nanofibers, nanotubes, allotropes, quantum dots (QD), and other nanomaterials enables an almost infinite source of value addition.
4. Additive Manufacturing
Emerging additive manufacturing facilities strive to evolve beyond traditional thermoplastics and apply materials that offer greater flexibility, customisation, and functionality while producing lesser waste. The progress of 3D printing technologies, in turn, spurs the upgrades in metals, alloys, ceramics, fibers, and their compounds
5. Lightweighting
Various industries, from aerospace to mobility, search for innovative ways to diminish excess weight and consequently provide superior fuel efficiency and handling. This drives research into materials like aluminum, magnesium, and titanium, as well as high-strength plastics and carbon fiber
6. Material Informatics
Big companies today employ a data-driven approach to materials, enhanced by principles of informatics and computational techniques, as well as ML and AI. This allows them to arrange and model materials data in a meticulous manner.
7. Advanced Composites
The rapid increase in the number of industrial applications also results in the development of a variety of composite or hybrid materials. In pursuit of improving performance and regulatory compliance as well as reducing costs, emerging startups innovate within resins, fibers, substrates, matrices, and finishes to build custom composites.
8. Graphene & 2D Materials
Breakthroughs in nanotechnology allow materials science companies to configure pathways for 2D, or single-layer, materials. Possessing inherent thermal conductivity and mechanical strength, 2D materials endow industrial applications with enhanced capabilities. However, a majority of 2D materials, such as germanene, silicene, stanene, and phosphorene, are still under development, excluding graphene.
9. Surface Engineering
Exposed to continuous wear and tear, corrosion, UV rays, and other harmful factors, industrial surfaces require coatings that demonstrate improved durability. This is essential for protecting automotive, industrial, agricultural, marine, and manufacturing assets, as well as for increasing productivity.
10. Materials Management 4.0
Industry 4.0 is inducing the implementation of its practices in materials management, handling, and processing. Spanning autonomous mining and advanced automated fabrication to robotic manipulations and cloud computing, the materials sector is being rapidly digitised and interconnected.
Impact of the Top 10 Materials Industry Trends in 2024
The Tree Map below illustrates the impact of the Top 10 advanced materials technologies in 2024. Startups are now developing sustainable, responsive, and smart materials that also offer improved physical properties. For example, biodegradable plastics, thermally adaptive fabric, and flexible displays. Novel formulations, including nanomaterials and biomaterials, are imparting new functionalities to existing materials while expanding the scope of innovation.
Additive manufacturing, advanced composites, and 2D materials are also leading to the development of various lightweight materials. Along with materials informatics and management, surface engineering impacts several industries from energy, automotive, and construction, to biotechnology, healthcare, and textiles.
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