Materials, we use in our daily lives for
housing, clothing, communication, electronics, food production, transporting,
medicines, health care and all of our modern demands.
Ancient people used only traditional materials
such as stone, clay, furs-leathers and woods. But all of those materials are
not sufficient to advanced using as doing heavy works. So Material Science was
evolved in time slowly due to people’s modern demands.
I hear you
are asking, “What does Material Science mean in our modern lives?” Material
Science investigates relationship between the structures and properties of
materials and aimed to manufacture new materials to using in advanced heavy
works.
Material is
everything around of you what you can see. Materials can grouped in 3 groups roughly
which they are called, metals, ceramics and polymers. If an academic approach
is necessary, we can say, in material science, there are 5 groups which they
are called, metals, polymers, ceramics, semi-conductors and nanomaterials.
Since dawn of the humanity, people deal with
metals to make tools, weapons and coins. Even alchemists tried to convert iron
to gold. Metals are exists as ores in nature. They have to be processed to
obtain them as pure metallic phases. Often we need metallic alloys in industry
due to alloy’s strength is very high than the pure forms. When the ores roasted
at high temperatures their plasticity will be increased than their first
situations.
In old ages, metallic products were stronger
than ceramics which made from soil. So all of weapons, tools and hunting
equipments made by metals due to their excellent mechanical properties. The
reason why they were preferred to ceramics, metallic materials had a great
toughness and strength. When a stress is applied on a ceramic tool, it breaks
easily than the metallic and as you know this situation is awful for who is
using that tool. But if a stress is applied on a metallic material it would
flex enough until it breaks. Unless it breaks, a few deformations would be
observed on that tool. But the resolve of that problem is very easy. When that
deformed metallic material is heated, it will be recovered immediately on its
own with high temperature.
When the ancient people passed the settled life,
and did agriculture and ranched, they were needed a lot of different material
groups except of metallic. Especially cooking was required using ceramic pots
and pans due to their low contamination characteristics. Also they had to
manufacture new moulds which do not fail against to very high temperatures
using metals casting. All of those things signed the “ceramics” which they made
from soil.
Ancient people tried a lot of methods until
they succeed in manufacturing a useful ceramic. At the end of those tests, they
reached very important information about manufacturing a useful ceramic. That
was the point to obtain a good ceramic, right mixture ratio which is between
metal oxides, clay and soil with in right temperature and time. After that day,
everything has changed in people’s lives such as safe cooking, manufacture new
metallic alloys which are casting in those new ceramic moulds etc... Also, they
could store their beverages in those new pots with safely.
Until the 1930s, people sustained their lives
with only two traditional groups of materials. So they couldn’t store
long-lived cooked food with their traditional pots.
With the
discovery of polymer industry, people found new materials that facilitates
their daily lives such as packs, gelatin films etc... to which are using store all
of foods with no contamination. Those new material groups which are called
polymers are weaker than the other materials groups in terms of strength. Due
to they are good humidity and air barrier, they were preferred to other groups
of materials to storing foods. Also their manufacturing process includes very
cheap methods and they are prone to mass production. We come across a lot of
polymers in our daily lives, I want to draw your attention that you’re surrounded
by a lot of things which are made from polymers. That new generation material
group is facilitating our lives due to their easy accessibility. For an
example, 30% ratio rubber and plastic materials are using in our vehicles.
While an ordinary modern people use 2-4 kg average steel per a year, but use just
about 15 kg
polymers.
In 1960s, instead of transistor
radios, those old radios with lamps which have too long warm-up time, we had to
wait warm-up time to using. So those were not useful. In that silicon and
germanium were found to have a semiconductor characteristic, new generation
radios, chips and transistors were manufactured owing to that new tech. Thus
those huge radios, televisions and electrical devices could were minimized
according to their first generation. Silicon and germanium has changed our
lives in too much so Material Scientist had to investigated in a different group
those new materials which are called “semiconductors”
When we came to the 2000s, that millennium
disease occurred again, cancer! Either increasing fast food habit or due to
using genetically modified vegetables cancer cancer cases increased. When the
scientists realized that every cancer cells has a different characteristic
protein code each one, they found a way kill all of those cancer cells with
manufactured new nano diamond particles which unified with detector proteins.
Of course Material Scientists were included livelong of those new nano diamonds
every manufacturing step.
In next article I'll write about Crystal Structures in Material Science, keep in follow me please..
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| Nano-Diamond with Detector Protein Bonded to a Cancer Cell |
