– Surface science is important to meet our future challenges. It's practically impossible to develop the batteries, fuel cells, or other energy-storing materials of the future without understanding surface properties. Surface properties are also of great importance in medicine and medical technology, says Martin Andersson. From November 8-10, Chalmers University of Technology and the Swedish Chemical Society welcome you to the conference Materials for Tomorrow 2023: Surface of Things.
One of the initiators of the conference is Martin Andersson, a professor of applied chemistry at Chalmers with a focus on nanomaterials and surface chemistry:
– All materials have some sort of surface, so surfaces are of great interest to virtually everyone working with materials. We want to have an inclusive meeting – where we welcome all branches of material science.
What will the conference be about?
– We will have world-leading experts on site presenting the latest research results. And our newly hired researchers will present and describe their research and future plans. So, it will be a mix of senior well-established researchers together with our younger promising talents. The focus is on the surfaces of materials in general, and what properties they have. This includes a variety of materials, such as biological, inorganic, organic materials and metals.
Martin Andersson says that we should distinguish between surface atoms and bulk atoms. The latter, bulk, is about volume, and is surrounded by identical atoms. The surface atoms are those that define an interface.
In materials science, the properties of the surface are always of interest.
– All materials interact with the environment – it could be an implant that needs to heal in the body, or a solar cell that is a receiver of sunlight. As soon as something interacts with something else, the focus is on the surface. The properties of the surface differ from those of bulk material and therefore need to be studied explicitly. In nanomaterials, most atoms are surface atoms. In so-called 2D materials, the material is so thin that it only consists of surface. Graphene is an example of this, says Martin Andersson.
Surface chemistry is of great importance in several areas; energy storage, catalysis and energy production are examples where the surface of the materials is of utmost importance, especially if you want to have a high energy density. This requires an understanding of the properties of the surface.
– In medicine and medical technology, the questions are about how we should create materials to, for example, provide an aging population with a high quality of life or develop materials that do not get infected after surgery – here the surface plays a crucial role, says Martin Andersson.
Surfaces can, however, be challenging to study, which requires special analysis methods. Chalmers has an infrastructure, Chalmers Materials Analysis Laboratory, CMAL, which has advanced instruments for material and surface analysis, and many of the scientific presentations will include research on new materials where these and other surface-sensitive measurement methods have been used.
Materials for Tomorrow is an opportunity for materials researchers to meet and discuss, whether they are experimentalists or work with modeling and theory.
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about the conference?
– We welcome representatives from both academia and industry, both with an interest in fundamental issues and more applied ones. We would like to see students with an interest in the area attending. Looking specifically at surface chemistry, Sweden has had a leading role in its development – there is a lot of competence and experience here. So there is a natural link between surface chemistry and materials science, and that's the theme we want to hit here, says Martin Andersson.
Materials for Tomorrow
The conference is an annually recurring, first organized in 2010. It addresses the material challenges of the future in different ways. Themes and format vary from year to year. Regardless of theme, we always strive to make Materials for Tomorrow a relevant meeting arena for academia, industry and other societal actors, where the current research front is in focus. The meeting is sometimes organized only by Materials Science Area of Advance and sometimes in collaboration with other organizations with a joint interest in the theme.
In concurrence with the conference Materials for Tomorrow the Area of Advance Materials Science organize a materials science photo competition. The idea is to bring forth the beauty that can be found in materials science. Read more.