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Commercialization of bulk nanostructured metals and alloys

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Abstract

Almost 30 years of research elucidating the mechanisms and reproducibility of nanostructuring has enabled the progressive emergence of reliable methods to manufacture bulk nanostructured metallic materials with superior properties. This article reviews examples of the use of nanostructured metals in engineered products that are currently commercially available, or will soon become available for specific biomedical, aerospace, electronics, and energy industry applications. The examples illustrate how the making and marketing of nanostructured materials follow similar development stages as other new advanced materials, but with additional challenges at each stage. Challenges include the difficulties of scaleup, intricacies of nanoscale characterization, the lack of consensus standards for product quality, competition with long-established conventional materials, regulatory hurdles associated with nanoscale technology, and consumer/user education on the virtues and limitations of nanostructuring. Finally, we discuss how the experiences to date with nanostructuring by various methods have established precedents that can guide manufacturing process development for advanced nanostructured metal and alloy applications.

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Acknowledgments

R.Z.V. gratefully acknowledges the financial support from the Russian Science Foundation in the framework of the Project No. 20-63-47027 for research in his part of the publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, USA

    Terry C. Lowe

  2. Institute of Physics of Advanced Materials, Ufa State Aviation Technical University, Ufa, Russia

    Ruslan Z. Valiev

  3. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA

    Xiaochun Li

  4. Fort Wayne Metals, Fort Wayne, USA

    Benjamin R. Ewing

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  1. Terry C. Lowe
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  2. Ruslan Z. Valiev
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Correspondence to Terry C. Lowe.

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Lowe, T.C., Valiev, R.Z., Li, X. et al. Commercialization of bulk nanostructured metals and alloys. MRS Bulletin 46, 265–272 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43577-021-00060-0

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