Materials science is the branch dedicated to the discovery, design and growth of new functional materials. It has played a vital and significant role in the advancement of society and mankind. It is hard to imagine life without materials science as most of the things we see or use today have their origin associated with the development in the field of material science and engineering. It has brought technology to the households of billions of people. Materials science led to breakthroughs in numerous sectors including energy, smart cities, transport, health, and medicine. And in the times of Covid-19, researchers and scientists are working on biomaterials, nanoscience & technology, and other materials to enhance the growth and understanding of various phenomena.
We are in the midst of a materials science revolution. One such important materials advancement is happening in the sector of “Materials Informatics” (MI). There is a steady increase in the number of publications in the last few years in this field and has touched almost every area of research be it chemistry, biology, biomedical sciences, or the energy sector. It is being considered a super accelerator for the development of functional materials.
What is Material Informatics?
“Materials informatics”, is an innovative data-driven technology that employs the fundamental and experimental data of materials combined with advanced statistical models to predict materials of the future. It uses data and machine learning methods to gain insights into various scientific and processing aspects and to elevate the final performance based on past experience. The input is mostly a material constituent or a process and the output is the desired property.
With higher computational capabilities and better documentation of experimental data, this field has been growing exponentially. In the last decade with the acceptance of the importance of data, materials informatics has rapidly become an essential part of the materials research profile. Few research scientists have been successful in efficiently discovering novel functional materials using materials informatics techniques such as machine learning (ML). ML aids in rapid scoping through numerous materials and identifying appropriate properties in a very short span of time.
Pre-requisite to apply MI in material Science
To apply MI in material science, an ample amount of high-quality input data related to the property of the material which needs to be studied is required. To efficiently extract this large data from numerous publications over the years, the Materials Genome Initiative and the Materials platform for data science (MPDS) are quite effective as they provide easy access to information on numerous properties of known materials to researchers.
The initial impetus to the field of materials informatics was given after the announcement of the “Materials Genome Initiative” which is an initiative to discover, design and apply advanced materials effectively and efficiently at only a fraction of the cost as compared to traditional methods. It has been realized that progress in the field of material science can be hastened by integrating computational methods and all aspects of materials theory. Materials informatics can substantially contribute to understanding the processing–characterizing-structure-property relationships of functional materials.
Scope and Future Prospects
According to Precedence Research, the worldwide market size of materials informatics reached 72.2 million US dollars in 2020 and by 2030 it is expected to exceed over 782.2 million US dollars. Material informatics has largely impacted the areas of organic electronics, batteries, additive manufacturing, and nanomaterial development. The materials informatics global market despite being vastly competitive and opportunistic is still in the budding stage. Growing investment from well-established companies along with startups has accelerated the pace of the market. With further advancements in the new age of machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques, this market is anticipated to grow even more in the coming years.
Dr. Isha Saini
Assistant Professor
School of Engineering & Technology
