In the near future, innovation will either be sustainable, or it won't be!  

To innovate, you will need to be sustainable. Therefore, future smart materials will need to be sustainable to be developed and used to build sustainable innovations. 

Why will innovation soon be synonymous with sustainability? 

The "time-to-market" of sustainability is taking place (i.e., when the demand for sustainable solutions becomes dominant in the market) due to increasing pressures regarding climate disasters and the impacts of pollution on living and working conditions. Stakeholders increasingly demand active participation in environmental protection and social responsibility, and traditional price competition models are becoming insufficient. 

Therefore, the next generation of smart materials will have to be sustainable, and their role will be to create sustainable innovations. 

Because of their disruptive and innovative characteristics, smart materials can easily enable the development of sustainable innovations. 

What is a Smart Material? 

A smart material can spontaneously modify its physical properties (structure, viscosity, absorption and/or emission spectrum, etc) in response to natural or induced excitations. These may come from outside or inside the material: variations in temperature, pH, humidity, mechanical stress, electric or magnetic fields, etc. 

Unlike conventional materials, which are intrinsically inert, and whose properties always remain the same whatever the stresses to which the object is subjected, this smart material is, therefore, like a chameleon: it can adapt its response, signaling a change in the environment and, in some cases, taking corrective action. It can behave like a sensor (detecting signals), an actuator (performing an action), or sometimes like a processor (processing, comparing, and storing information). 

To sum up, a smart material can adapt to its environment. 

Applications of Smart Materials

Smart materials will have an impact on most fields of application in terms of sustainability: they will be able to prevent products from ending their lives prematurely thanks to self-repair, and thus considerably reduce the amount of our waste; they will also facilitate the recycling and reuse of plastic materials, for example, by being able to be transformed back into their initial state (into monomers) to be reused and product again polymers, and thus avoid reproducing new plastics from oil; they will also be able to store energy in very small volumes, and thus optimize energy management; and so on. 

Clearly, smart materials represent a tremendous opportunity to meet environmental challenges. 

Examples of Smart Materials 

To illustrate, here are a few examples of smart materials: 

Shape Memory Polymers 

Shape memory polymers are capable of "healing" shallow scratches and scrapes after a fall. For example, a team from the University of California has developed a polymer containing an ionic salt, whose chemical bonds form an ion-dipole interaction, a weaker but more dynamic type of bond than covalent bonds.  

The researchers could stretch the material to 50 times its usual size, and it automatically bonded back together within a day of being torn. Unlike the other polymers tested, this polymer conducts current, enabling it to be used for a smartphone screen.  

Another team from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) has also developed a very hard organic material containing piezoelectric crystals that repairs itself spontaneously when damaged. This could make repairing smartphone screens easier than replacing them and generating new waste. 

Infinitely Recyclable Polymer 

Scientists at Colorado State University in the USA have developed a proof-of-concept for a plastic that can theoretically be recycled ad infinitum, and which has many characteristics equivalent to those of the plastics we know (including strength, durability, and heat resistance).  

It is a γ-butyrolactone (GBL)- based polymer system with trans-ring fusion at the α and β positions. This trans-ring fusion makes the GBL ring (generally considered non-polymerizable) readily polymerizable at room temperature under solvent-free conditions to give a high-molecular-weight polymer. This polymer has a better thermostability and can be repeatedly and quantitatively recycled into monomers by thermolysis or chemolysis. 

Mixing the two enantiomers of the polymer generates a highly crystalline supramolecular stereo complex. Thus, the process of "chemical recycling" of this polymer can be undertaken without toxic chemicals or intensive laboratory procedures. Scientists are considering the possibility of industrial deployment. 

Easily converted into useful base materials, this material has a recoverable value. Therefore, it can no longer be considered as waste but a raw material that could generate high-value-added products. This type of solution promotes recycling and sustainability by reducing the demand for new plastics and their penetration into the environment. 

What can smart materials companies do to remain competitive in terms of sustainable growth? 

One of the important points for this type of company in terms of sustainability is to remember that all raw materials are in limited quantities on this planet. These companies, therefore, have the challenge of setting up a business model that will respect the natural capital by considering in their business plan the calculation of the volumes of materials produced and the rate of regeneration of the raw materials used. 

Another important point, but not the only one, is that when proposing a new material on the market, it is essential to have previously studied the risks of toxicity to humans and the impacts on the environment in the use cases and beyond.  

Of course, companies will pass the standard tests, but it is also necessary to consider the long-term global consequences of the presence of this material in the environment if it is released into nature: how it degrades and how fauna and flora interact with the fragments/waste of this material for example. This should be considered in the building specifications for these companies. 

Finally, these companies will also need to think about biodegradability, recycling, and reuse of their materials right from the design stage to facilitate the generation of sustainable innovations. There are many methodologies available today for designing in this way; companies need to understand that this is their responsibility and that it is both a necessity for the world and an opportunity for them to succeed in implementing sustainable solutions. 

Frequently Asked Questions Answered by Laetitia Gazagnes

1. What are the challenges and opportunities in scaling up the production and implementation of sustainable smart materials?

The first main challenge is ensuring these smart materials will be truly sustainable in the short, middle, and long term. As with any new technology, we often need to remember to check the long-term impacts and consequences of this new technology on the environment and life. We must get used to analyzing and studying in depth all the implications a new technology could have once had on the market.

Of course, as with any innovation, companies will take some risks associated with the innovation intensity of these new sustainable smart materials.

Then the opportunities in scaling up the production and implementation of sustainable smart materials will be significant for all companies launching them because the future will be sustainable. With smart materials, these companies will differentiate themselves on the market thanks to the innovation aspect of these technologies.

 

2. How are technological advancements such as nanotechnology and biotechnology impacting the smart materials market?

Indeed, nanotechnology provides new opportunities for the smart materials market; for instance, graphene is a promising technology we could then use in many application fields: for example, in electronics to replace silicon and bring more efficient properties, but also for the water filtration, in the healthcare: as a drug vector, graphene oxide is characterized by high biocompatibility and excellent solubility. This enables precise dosing of anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer agents, enzymes, and minerals. Because graphene is a perfect conductor of heat, it is also used to destroy cancerous tumors.

It also could be used to produce lighter, more sustainable structural components for cars, aircraft, ships, appliances, etc.

Of course, biotechnology is also a great opportunity to impact the smart materials market, but some new innovative processes like the 3D additive process, some processes using the femto laser, etc. 

Artificial intelligence and quantum chemistry could also promote the emergence of new smart materials. For example, it will allow the creation of new smart molecules and materials, which could also be more sustainable. In the meantime, it will also enable more sustainable chemistry by maximizing the number of atoms in the reactants transformed into finished products, thus avoiding the production of by-products. 

 

3. How are smart materials addressing environmental challenges and promoting sustainability?

Smart materials have this opportunity to change the market and drive companies to offer sustainable innovations. Indeed, smart materials offer great new technological opportunities, and they have the potential to solve many environmental challenges. Most of the time, they can provide new smart functionalities. They are often smaller and can empower more energy thanks to more efficient storage, and some can regenerate themselves and avoid waste. 

The technological power of smart materials is high, and if we use these smart materials on environmental issues, we could tackle many environmental challenges more quickly.