From the vault: Getting materials out of the lab
How to mass-produce new substances
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I’m writing these words using plastic keys, on a composite wood desk, looking at a Gorilla Glass screen. The screen is linked to a machined-aluminum computer, inside of which doped silicon switches on and off a billion times per second.
One hundred and fifty years ago, not a single one of these materials existed.
Materials are not charismatic technologies like cars or computers. Yet they enable almost every one of humanity’s technical achievements: rebar unlocked the skyscrapers of the 1920s; chemically strengthened glass delivered us smartphones; and stainless steel, not created until 1913, brought with it the clinical equipment upon which modern medicine depends.
New materials create fundamentally new human capabilities. And yet, despite university teams regularly announcing triumphantly that they’ve created a material with seemingly magical properties like artificial muscles made out of carbon nanotubes or ‘limitless power’ from graphene, new materials-enabled human capabilities have been rare in the past 50 years.
Why is there such a gap between headlines and reality when it comes to new materials? Is there anything we can do about it?
The only way to answer those questions is to understand how a material goes from a tiny test tube sample to a commodity measured in megatons. Each step in the process requires different skills, mindsets, and resources. Each step is also governed by different incentives that make sense locally but create deadly traps for the entire process. Bypassing these traps needs systems-level solutions that take into account each step of the process – whether in policy, organizational reform, or new institutions – and unlock the progress that new materials enable.
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This article first appeared in Issue 15 of Works in Progress.
Benjamin Reinhardt works on accelerating science and blogs on his website.
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It might be interesting to examine the industries that serve as testbeds for new materials. While it took over 40 years for the first carbon fiber commercial plane to go into production, the first carbon fiber F1 car raced in 1981.
I'd be curious to know what the author had in mind here: "by giving authority to the people who understand the actual work"
Which people? the scientists doing the research? the engineers trying to build things with the new materials? the presidents of the universities or CEOs of the startups?
What authority?