Heather Allain, Executive Director, Materials Technology Institute (MTI), tells us about her passion for materials and the importance of MTI’s work to provide awareness of safe, reliable and sustainable materials use.
Nickel-based catalysts are key to supplying energy to power our transportation of goods and people, whether by land, sea, or air.
Think of the largest cruise ship. Then imagine how much it weighs – just over 100,000 tonnes, in fact. Now think about 500 of those ships, and what they weigh. That is the staggering amount of new electronic waste that we generate every year.
Geothermal energy for electric power production has a low profile yet is significant in the current and potential energy mix for a number of countries. It has also been described as the most reliable of the renewable energy sources, above weather-dependent wind, solar and hydropower.
The many new and innovative applications of hydrogen as fuel show great promise for a greener future.
As electric vehicles (EVs) trend from being niche to mass scale and the lines between EVs and their combustion engine (ICE) counterparts get blurred in terms of usability, consumers, automakers, governments and fire departments continue to have some apprehensions.
The present-day principal driver in the Li-ion industry is the large batteries required for electric vehicles. Due to the size of these batteries and the relative growth of electric vehicles it is predicted that the total Li-ion energy capacity will exceed one tera watt-hour by 2030. This anticipation for a dramatically rapidly expanding industry has stakeholders all along the value chain very motivated to be ready.
Most nickel production is destined for stainless steel. But a significant 8% is used in the production of alloy steels which are needed to deliver specific characteristics for specialised and often critical applications.