New materials are an important support for new industrialization, one of the strategic emerging industries vigorously developed, and an important industrial direction to accelerate the development of new-quality productivity and firmly promote high-quality development. In recent years, the new materials industry has entered a period of accelerated development, the scale of the industry has been continuously expanding, and the new materials market opportunities and development prospects are good.
New materials include promoting the upgrading of advanced basic materials such as non-ferrous metals, chemicals, and inorganic non-metals, developing key strategic materials such as high-performance carbon fibers and advanced semiconductor materials, and accelerating the innovative application of cutting-edge new materials such as superconducting materials.
The new material industry has entered a period of accelerated development
A highway has won an industry award for applying a new green material-high-performance low-alloy coating-free weather-resistant steel. According to the chief engineer of the project, this material has the advantages of corrosion resistance, coating-free, etc., and weather resistance is 2 to 8 times that of ordinary steel. It not only improves the aesthetics of the project but also significantly reduces the impact of late maintenance on traffic operations. The team also developed a new type of rust promoter to shorten the material corrosion cycle from 3 months to 7 days, greatly improving construction efficiency.
New materials are a strategic basic industry, and cutting-edge materials represent the future technological direction, are pioneering and disruptive, and are the key to building a new growth engine. Its wide application in new-generation information technology, new energy, equipment manufacturing, etc. has shown great market potential. Experts pointed out that potential materials in the future need to have two characteristics that surpass existing materials in performance and have predictable application prospects.
In recent years, the scale of the new materials industry has continued to expand. The total output value in 2022 will reach about 6.8 trillion yuan, an increase of nearly 6 times over ten years ago. A complete R&D and production system covering metals, polymers, ceramics, and other materials has been formed, and the output of more than 100 kinds of materials ranks among the forefront in the world. The total output value in the first three quarters of 2023 exceeded 5 trillion yuan, maintaining a double-digit growth rate. At present, several innovation centers and key platforms have been built in the field of new materials, breaking through cutting-edge technologies such as high-temperature superconducting materials and perovskite solar cells, and cultivating more than 20,000 large-scale enterprises and thousands of specialized and special new enterprises.
Typical cases show that the application of aluminum-lithium alloy in large aircraft, the superconducting cable project supported by high-temperature superconducting materials, and key technological breakthroughs such as super steel, low environmental load cement, and heavy-duty harbor portal cranes base reinforcement are promoting the upgrading of aviation, energy, construction and other industries. The new materials also provide key material guarantees for transportation and environmental protection, such as the application of innovative accessories such as corrosion-resistant alloy crane hooks and lightweight carbon fiber cables, significantly improving the safety and operating efficiency of lifting equipment, while reducing energy consumption and maintenance costs.
Industrial analysis believes that a complete industrial system and a huge market have laid the foundation for the development of new materials, coupled with the increase in R&D investment, the improvement of talent quality, and the optimization of the innovation environment, jointly promote the acceleration of the industry towards high-end.
More high-performance new achievements are available
0.03mm thickness? Is this glass? When this piece of glass was gently bent into a rainbow shape, the people around were amazed. A Chinese scientific research team has developed a flexible display glass (UTG). This kind of glass is often used in folding screen mobile phones to achieve a 30-micron ultra-thin flexible glass with a bending radius of less than 0.5mm, and the bending limit is further improved. In the future, UTG will continue to deepen cross-innovation with information science, energy science, life sciences, space science, and other fields, and continue to develop in the direction of ultra-thinning, functional, composite, and intelligent. For example, UTG can be used as a transparent protective layer. Under the premise of ensuring the safety performance of automobiles, the glass area of the vehicle can be equipped with a transparent display function to create a new generation of HMI (human-machine interface) solutions.
In addition, in the field of smart medical care, micro-electronic components such as strain sensors and supercapacitors can be precisely placed on the glass lining to form electronic skin patches that can fit on the surface of the human body, which can monitor human physiological signals in real-time, such as heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, etc., to achieve remote diagnosis and treatment, and at the same time can be used to enhance the perception and interaction capabilities of intelligent robots.；
In recent years, magnesium alloy parts produced in China have been used in tens of millions of automobiles. Magnesium alloy is currently the most environmentally friendly material with the best lightweight effect. Its remarkable lightweight characteristics can bring obvious energy-saving and emission-reduction effects, especially in magnesium battery materials and magnesium hydrogen storage materials. It shows good performance potential. The rich functional characteristics of magnesium alloy will make its application field more extensive. Magnesium alloy is applied to the seat skeleton, which can reduce the weight of the whole chair, has good stiffness, and has good shock absorption properties. Its durability and high and low-temperature performance have also been verified.
In terms of magnesium-based hydrogen storage, magnesium-based solid-state hydrogen storage alloy is known as one of the most potential new hydrogen storage materials. It has the advantages of large hydrogen storage capacity, good reversibility of hydrogen absorption and discharge, low cost, and rich resources；
Graphene is a new material that leads the forefront of science and technology. It has excellent electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and mechanical properties, and is leading the innovation of new material technology.
Graphene heat dissipation materials and graphene conductive additives have been widely used in the mobile phone industry and the new energy battery industry. Some mobile phones will have graphene heat dissipation films, and many lithium batteries equipped with new energy vehicles also use graphene additives;
Graphene anticorrosive coatings have been successfully used in many domestic projects, such as anticorrosive coatings for articulating jib cranes metal structures, which significantly extend the service life of the equipment and reduce maintenance costs; graphene energy-saving electric heating products such as electric heating films and heating plates have been well promoted in the electric heating market, and graphene electric heating is used in clean heating and energy-saving transformation projects in many places. Solution; in the field of healthcare, some graphene physiotherapy products have obtained medical device certificates.
In addition, graphene composite materials are also used in the manufacture of lightweight crane booms to improve the carrying capacity and operating efficiency of lifting equipment.
Create a good industrial development environment
The development of the new materials industry is a long-term project. It is necessary to judge and grasp the development trend of world science and technology while maintaining strategic determination. Based on clarifying the needs of emerging industries and future industries for the development of new materials in the future, using industrial ecosystem thinking, we will strive to strengthen the foundation of the development of the materials industry, accelerate the modernization of the industrial chain, create a good ecological environment for industrial development, give full play to the advantages of the system and the advantages of the ultra-large-scale market, adhere to application traction, problem-oriented, adhere to the combination of government guidance and market mechanisms, adhere to independence and open cooperation to promote the development of the materials industry.