Novel materials refer to newly developed or developing materials including structural materials and functional materials. Structural materials, such as novel ceramic materials and amorphous alloys, are mainly concerned with mechanical properties, such as strength, toughness, hardness, elasticity and the others. As for functional materials, the electric, optical, acoustic, magnetic, thermal and other functions and physical effects are the mostly concerned. The development and application of novel materials is one of the main directions of science and technology development. Material innovation has become one of the important driving forces to promote the progress of human civilization and will also promote the development of technology and industrial upgrading.
- Energy field: Global energy consumption continues to grow, and most of the energy coming from fossil fuels. In the long term, novel sustainable energy sources without pollution are needed to replace all fossil fuels. The clean energy in the future includes hydrogen energy, solar energy, wind energy, nuclear fusion energy and the others. The key to solve the energy problem is the breakthrough of energy materials, and many kinds of materials related to energy field have been developing. For example, hydrogen is a pollution-free and efficient ideal energy source, and the key to hydrogen utilization is hydrogen storage and transportation. Hydrogen can corrode general materials and cause hydrogen embrittlement. During transportation, explosion is also prone to happen. Therefore, it is necessary to develop novel hydrogen storage materials to realize rational utilization of hydrogen.
Figure 1. MOF applied as hydrogen storage materials.
- Biological field: Novel materials are crucial for biological field. Disease diagnose, cancer treatment, organs replacement and the other advanced medical treatment cannot do without the developing of novel materials. Metallic biomaterials, macromolecular biomaterials, nanomaterials and biomass materials are all common material types in biological field. Among them, macromolecular biomaterials are the most researched in biomedical materials and metallic biomaterials are still the most widely used load-bearing implant materials in clinical applications.
Figure 2. A drug delivery system based on nanoparticle applied in biological field.
- The others: Novel materials are also widely used in other fields, such as information technology field, automobile field and the others.
- Superconducting materials: Some materials lose their resistance completely when the temperature drops to a certain critical temperature. This phenomenon is called superconductivity, and materials with this phenomenon are called superconducting materials. Another feature of superconductors is that when the resistance disappears, the magnetic induction line will not be able to pass through the superconductor. This phenomenon is called diamagnetism. The most attractive applications of superconducting materials are power generation, transmission and energy storage.
- Nanomaterials: Nanomaterials are important novel materials, which is the most active branch of nanotechnology. Nanomaterials are composed of nanoparticles, and the size of nanoparticles does not exceed 100 nanometers. Compared with bulk materials, nanomaterials have many unique physical and chemical properties, which can be applied in many fields.
- The others: Novel materials also include many other kinds, such as smart materials, new-type composite materials, magnetic materials and the others.
- Renju, Zacharia, Sami-ullah, et.al. ChemInform Abstract: Review of Solid State Hydrogen Storage Methods Adopting Different Kinds of Novel Materials[J].Cheminform, 2016.
- Martínez-Carmona Marina, Montserrat C, Vallet-Regí Maria. Smart Mesoporous Nanomaterials for Antitumor Therapy[J]. Nanomaterials, 2015, 5(4):1906-1937.