The beginning of a new year routinely comes with the making of lists, often to forecast trends or outline objectives for the next 12 months. I would like to offer my own set of predictions for 2016. The following materials technologies, I expect, will make significant headway this year. None is yet commercially
available, but many will launch in 2016 and the others will get that much closer
to market availability during the period. This motley
collection of innovations, which includes clothing made from synthesized spider
threads, consumer products bio-engineered from discarded shrimp shells, and a
bridge built entirely by robots, represents the culmination of years—sometimes
decades—of research. I list them below in the anticipated chronological order of realization, although
surprises and setbacks are inevitable. Join me in watching
how these material technologies unfold in 2016.
First on my list
is the Solar Activated Façade, a cladding system that combines
wood louvers and back-vented glazing. From my current perch in sub-zero
Minneapolis, the façade’s heat-sink functionality is particularly appealing.
Designed as a thermal storage device for use in colder climates, the system
consists of prefabricated panels that can be installed onsite via an aluminum
cladding mounting system. The wood slats are angled to deflect the summer sun
while inviting the winter sun's radiant energy into an interior
cavity, storing diurnal winter heat long into the night to reduce heat loss
from interior spaces. Depending on the type of insulated backing used, the
Solar Activated Façade can lead to R-values ranging from 65 to 150. The system
was originally developed by Switzerland-based architect Giuseppe Fent, and has been commercially
available in that country for
approximately 15 years as Lucido
Solar AG. The
product will be introduced to the U.S. by Swiss company Nelson Solar in the first quarter of
2016.
Synthetic Spider Thread
My next pick is Qmonos,
made by the Japanese company Spiber.
One of the most captivating arguments in Janine Benyus’ celebrated book Biomimicry:
Innovation Inspired by Nature (HarperCollins,
1997) concerned her aspiration for modern industry to create
materials as strong, elegant, and versatile as spider silk. Four years
earlier, Jeffrey Turner and Paul Ballard founded Nexia Biotechnologies, in
rural Quebec, Canada, to produce BioSteel, a high-performance silk-like fiber made by
cultivating recombinant proteins in the milk of transgenic goats. ''We take a single gene from a golden orb-weaving
spider and put it into a goat egg. The idea is to make the goat secrete spider
silk into its milk,” Turner told The New York Times in 2002.
Although
Nexia went bankrupt in 2009, Spiber has since taken the reins in creating a
synthetic spider thread it calls Qmonos (based on kumonosu, the Japanese
term for a spider web). The fibroin protein that imparts Qmonos with its
dragline, silk-like quality is not made from goats’ milk, but rather
bio-engineered bacteria and recombinant DNA. What’s more, Spiber has developed a
scalable production method and has already collaborated with apparel brand The
North Face to produce the Moon
Parka, an insulating jacket designed for extreme polar expeditions with a
shell made entirely of Qmonos fiber. The parka, currently on an
exhibition tour across Japan, is expected to be available for consumer
purchase in 2016.
Structural 3D Printing
Originally
scheduled to start construction late last year, the Dutch designer Joris
Laarman’s MX3D Bridge should begin taking shape this
year. As the world's first 3D-printed bridge, the highly anticipated steel structure
will be built using the Netherlands–based
MX3D's multi-axis metal-printing technology. This process is driven by
industrial robots fitted with welding machines that can print
lines of various metals in mid-air, starting from an anchored surface—similar
to drawing a structure in space—by incrementally fusing molten metal in short
lengths and allowing it to cool. Working in collaboration with Autodesk and European
construction company Heijmans, Laarman
has long been developing plans for the autonomously constructed, 26.2-foot-long-by-13.1-foot-wide
pedestrian bridge, which will span the Oudezijds Achterburgwal canal, one of Amsterdam’s oldest man-made
waterways. Although Laarman wanted to build the bridge in-situ, onsite
construction was deemed impracticable. The structure is now anticipated to be printed
in a nearby warehouse.
Self-Healing Concrete
Also undergoing testing is
a collection of self-healing concrete technologies. Through a
project called Materials
for Life (M4L), researchers from the School of Engineering at the University
of Cardiff, in Wales, are conducting the first major trial of these materials
in the U.K. The team, which also includes scientists from the University of
Bath and the University of Cambridge, both in England, will evaluate the
viability of three types of self-healing concrete: one with shape-memory
polymers activated by electrical current, one with healing agents made from
organic and inorganic compounds, and one with capsules containing bacteria and
healing agents. M4L’s goal is autonomous infrastructure—roads, tunnels, bridges,
and buildings—that can repair themselves without human intervention. The
team’s goal is to “create sustainable and resilient systems that continually
monitor, regulate, adapt, and repair themselves without the need for human
intervention," said Cardiff professor and M4L principal investigator Bob
Lark in a press
release. This is especially important given the estimated 40 billion pounds
($57.8 billion) spent annually on the concrete-intensive maintenance and repair
of these structures in the U.K., the team says. The M4L trial is underway at a
road-construction site near the A465 highway in South Wales, where the
researchers can view the performance under real-world conditions.
Bioplastics
Finally, research continues to bring us closer to tomorrow's plastic. Scientists at Harvard
University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have
developed a new bioplastic made from discarded shrimp shells. Using the
remarkably tough yet flexible natural chitin, or insect cuticle, Wyss founding
director Don Ingber and postdoctoral fellow Javier Fernandez have created thin
films with the same structure and composition as chitin. Made using the
processed derivative chitosan from shrimp shells, the
new plastic matches aluminum in strength at only half the weight. It is
also biocompatible, biodegradable, inexpensive, and may be molded to a variety of 3D shapes. The researchers are optimistic about
the material's ability to replace fossil fuel–based plastics in consumer and
medical applications. This is critical given the proliferation of non-biodegradable
plastic waste discarded every year, much of which is polluting the world's
oceans. "There is an urgent need in many industries for sustainable
materials that can be mass produced," Ingber said in a press
release. He and Fernandez are currently refining the bioplastic manufacturing
methods in order to scale up to commercial production.
