Trends Identified
New materials with new properties may stimulate innovation
New bio and nanomaterials are likely to launch a new era of product and process innovation. Their new properties are changing the size, at both ends of the scale, at which designers, engineers and architects can dream. Nanocomposites and other new materials – some as strong as steel and others so and supple – will improve the performance of manufactured products and support a wider range of 3D printed objects. Embedded sensors and digital tags within materials will enable tracking along the supply chain, offering improved transparency and monitoring of product life cycles.
2013
Metascan 3 emerging technologies
Canada, Policy Horizons Canada
Next-generation purification systems
New generation purification systems are based on nanotechnologies in water purification membranes. The availability of technology will lead in the long-term to solving the problem of drinking water shortages in a number of world regions and improving the effectiveness of closed loop water processes in industry with prospects for optimising the sizes and increasing the mobility of existing treatment complexes.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Useful next-generation component pre-concentration systems
New generation useful component pre-concentration systems are aimed at enriching minerals by various methods (gravitational, magnetic, electrical, flotation, bacterial, chemical, impulse, radiation and radiothermal, concentrated and insitu leaching methods, etc.). In particular, one of the technological objectives is to enrich material contained in manmade dumps and tailings up to an industrial concentration of a useful component. The further development of such technologies will create conditions to increase industrial supplies of mineral raw materials by bringing into service deposits with low metal content ores. Wider use of solid pockets of minerals will bring about an overall reduction in the value of extracted ore. The effectiveness of work by metallurgical and chemical companies which use enriched raw materials will increase together with the level of extraction of useful components of certain types of minerals; the amount of waste and raw materials loss will decrease.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
The great leveller?
New information technologies are reaching the world’s poor much faster than food and toilets. A recent UN report suggested six billion people have access to mobile phones, while only 4.5 billion have access to working toilets. Technology offers great potential to enhance education opportunities, dramatically improve health outcomes, promote free speech and democracy, and offer greater access to global markets. The Internet is the key driver of global connectivity and opportunity, but different bandwidth speeds, limited access, and contrasting levels of openness can mean that
the Internet exacerbates rather than offsets inequality.
2013
Now for the long term - The Report of the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations
Oxford Martin School
New materials and biotech
New materials and biotech, which include advanced materials, such as new lightweight materials, and next-generation genomics.
2019
Tech for good
McKinsey
Two-Dimensional Materials
New materials can change the world. There is a reason we talk about the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Concrete, stainless steel, and silicon made the modern era possible. Now a new class of materials, each consisting of a single layer of atoms, are emerging, with far-reaching potential. Known as two-dimensional materials, this class has grown within the past few years to include lattice-like layers of carbon (graphene), boron (borophene) and hexagonal boron nitride (aka white graphene), germanium (germanene), silicon (silicene), phosphorous (phosphorene) and tin (stanene). More 2-D materials have been shown theoretically possible but not yet synthesized, such as graphyne from carbon. Each has exciting properties, and the various 2-D substances can be combined like Lego bricks to build still more new materials. This revolution in monolayers started in 2004 when two scientists famously created 2-D graphene using Scotch tape—probably the first time that Nobel-prize-winning science has been done using a tool found in kindergarten classrooms. Graphene is stronger than steel, harder than diamond, lighter than almost anything, transparent, flexible, and an ultrafast electrical conductor. It is also impervious to most substances except water vapor, which flows freely through its molecular mesh. Initially more costly than gold, graphene has tumbled in price thanks to improved production technologies. Hexagonal boron nitride is now also commercially available and set to follow a similar trajectory. Graphene has become cheap enough to incorporate it in water filters, which could make desalination and waste-water treatment far more affordable. As the cost continues to fall, graphene could be added to road paving mixtures or concrete to clean up urban air—on top of its other strengths, the stuff absorbs carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides from the atmosphere. Other 2-D materials will probably follow the trajectory that graphene has, simultaneously finding use in high-volume applications as the cost falls, and in high-value products like electronics as technologists work out ways to exploit their unique properties. Graphene, for example, has been used to make flexible sensors that can been sewn into garments—or now actually 3-D printed directly into fabrics using new additive manufacturing techniques. When added to polymers, graphene can yield stronger yet lighter airplane wings and bicycle tires. Hexagonal boron nitride has been combined with graphene and boron nitride to improve lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors. By packing more energy into smaller volumes, the materials can reduce charging times, extend battery life, and lower weight and waste for everything from smart phones to electric vehicles. Whenever new materials enter the environment, toxicity is always a concern. It’s smart to be cautious and to keep an eye out for problems. Ten years of research into the toxicology of graphene has, so far, yielded nothing that raises any concerns over its effects on health or the environment. But studies continue. The invention of 2-D materials has created a new box of powerful tools for technologists. Scientists and engineers are excitedly mixing and matching these ultrathin compounds—each with unique optical, mechanical and electrical properties—to produce tailored materials optimised for a wide range of functions. Steel and silicon, the foundations of 20th-century industrialization, look clumsy and crude by comparison.
2016
Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
World Economic Forum (WEF)
New materials to stimulate regeneration, activity and cytodifferentiation in the body
New materials to stimulate the regeneration, activity and differentiation of cells in the body offer the potential to cure pathologies in the musculoskeletal system, wounds of various aetiology, cardiovascular diseases, etc. Innovative techniques are based on bioengineering “grafting” technologies in this field and are required, with the necessary speed, to regenerate cells and to subsequently form various tissues and organs directly in the body on the basis of those cells. At the end of the prescribed timeframe, the biodegradable polymer materials leave the body, breaking down with natural metabolic products. New technologies will help to speed up the healing of all types of tissue, prevent the formation of adhesions, and reduce the number of complications after operations, thus providing a significant increase in patients’ quality of life.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Elements electronics based on memristors
New opportunities to create neuromorphic computer systems with a revolutionary new architecture will be opened up by memristor-based electronics. This drastically increases their performance when solving problems which have been poorly programmed on classic computers, and significantly reduces their energy consumption. In the field of “smart” electronics, it may be possible to make controlled changes to the electrical resistance of functional materials with long-term storage of the specified status, which will make it possible to use these structures as equivalents to synapses when setting up the hardware for neural networks and building neuromorphic computer systems.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
New Energy Technology
New sources of power generation will become commercially available and viable before 2040. Out to 2020, while advances may be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, the efficient use and management of power will increasingly be a key driver, particularly for the design of new devices. Hybridisation, along with fuel additives and smart design, will improve the energy efficiency of engines. Smart, conformal designs for low-power systems for efficient charge recovery, and the use of power scavenging techniques, will be examples of potential innovation. For short periods of operation, batteries are likely to remain the preferred power source; however, as energy demands increase, improved fuel cells adapted to suit the operating environment may become the preferred option for longer operations. Nonetheless, demand for traditional lithium-ion type batteries, will increase due to an increased uptake of hybrid and electric vehicles
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence
Systems to provide automated control of the state of vehicles and infrastructure
New technical methods and automated systems to monitor the state of vehicles and infrastructure and oversee their maintenance and repair will make it possible to generate integrated analytical assessments of the level of technological safety and to create a single multi-level vehicle control system. By optimising repair and re-construction schedules for infrastructure it will become possible to reduce the risks associated with operating transport systems without appreciably worsening the operating conditions of traffic flows. The introduction of new products can help to significantly increase the level of safety on transport, optimise road traffic and reduce the degree of wear on key resources. Knowledge of the operations of transport systems and infrastructure in difficult climatic and geological conditions, including Arctic and sub-Arctic zones, could be a competitive advantage for Russian workers and manufacturers.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation