What is Materials Science?

Today we are talking about the basics of materials science! Relatable Science is a science blog geared towards teaching about materials science. In addition to sharing information about the basics of materials science, there is also information about some of the latest innovations in materials science. To make sure you can enjoy all of the content that is posted let’s answer the question, what is materials science.

One of the cool things about material science is that it is not like a traditional science or engineering discipline it is an interdisciplinary field. Interdisciplinary means materials science combines concepts of many different traditional fields of science, engineering, technology, and mathematics to learn new things.

To start let’s rewind all the way back to grade school science class. In grade school, you probably learned about the basis of materials science… the periodic table.

Foundations of Materials Science

The periodic table represents all of the known elements. On the periodic table, elements are organized into periods which are the rows, and groups which are the columns. Elements that are in the same column or “group” have similar properties. Additionally, they are further categorized into groupings called families.

The goal of materials science is to look at elements as individuals or compounds and determine how they behave. After materials scientists investigate the properties of materials, they try to tailor their behavior to fit a need or application. The name of this tailoring process is material selection or material design.

To aid in the material selection process, materials science breaks elements and compounds into broader groups. And no I’m not talking about metalloids or alkali earth metals, the families on the periodic table I’m talking about much more broad categories that are significantly easier to remember and understand.

As a materials scientist when we think about materials we think about them in three main groupings metals, ceramics, and polymers and then there’s a bonus grouping that is any combination of the others which is called composites. 

These groupings categorize the chemical properties of materials and make them easier to remember. To learn more about the individual classes of materials you can check out the links to pages dedicated to each of them. However, if you keep reading we will talk about each of them briefly.

More Info on the Classes of Materials

Here’s a very brief overview of each of the different classes of materials, but you should definitely check out the links above to learn even more.

Ceramics

Ceramics are the oldest materials class of materials. They are compounds, which means multiple elements bonded together. Ionic or covalent bonds combine the elements in ceramic compounds. Ionic bonding occurs when a positively charged ion transfers an electron to a negatively charged ion. After the ions bond, neutral molecules form. A good example of that is Sodium and Chloride covalently bond to make table salt

The second type of bonding in ceramics is covalent bonding. Covalent bonding is the type of bonding that takes place when elements share electrons as opposed to transferring them. A good example of a ceramic material that uses covalent bonding is a diamond. Chemically, diamonds are a grouping of covalently bonded carbon.

Although they do not use the same type of bonding as diamond, gemstones like emeralds, pearls, sapphires, jade, amethyst, and turquoise are also ceramics.

So technically you could say that ceramics are a girl’s best friend.

Metals

Next up are metals. Metals utilize metallic bonding which means that all of the elements share a sea of electrons. They can be used elementally which means all of the elements in the material are the same except for impurities; like gold and silver.

Or they can be used as alloys which means it is a combination of one or more metallic elements like steel which is an alloy of iron and carbon or brass which is an alloy of copper and zinc.

Polymers

Polymers are the next class of materials we are going to talk about and they are the last independently unique class of materials. The word polymer actually means many parts and that is exactly what they are.

The toy pictured below illustrates what polymers look like on a molecular level. The “polymer” is made up of monomers (the balls) held together by covalent bonds (the sticks). Monomers bound together thousands of times ultimately make very very long chains, polymers.

Polymers are everywhere in everyday life from the threads to make clothes, to the plastic used for cup and furniture, and then naturally occurring polymers like lignin in trees of collagen that is in your skin and a lot of makeup.

Composites

Composites are cool because you take the best qualities of the individual classes of materials and combine them to make some that have the best of both worlds. By combing two classes of materials scientists can make lighter, stronger, and more versatile materials. One of the most widely used examples of composite materials are polymer matrix composites with carbon fiber and fiberglass.

Sporting equipment is an example of an industry that uses poly matrix composites a lot.

Carbon fiber composites are very commonly used to make baseball bats and football helmets.

Boats are often made out of Glass fiber. Usually when you hear someone refer to a fiberglass thing they are actually talking about a composite that is a polymer that has been reinforced with glass fiber.

So now that you know what all of the classes of materials are leave me a comment down below which one is your favorite or if there is one that you want me to talk more about.

Hope you enjoyed this introduction to materials science, and you will keep exploring Relatable Science to learn even more.