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4 A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 8 ASM International 9639 Kinsman Road, Materials Park, OH 44073 Tel: 440.338.5151 • Fax: 440.338.4634 Frances Richards, Editor-in-Chief frances.richards@asminternational.org Joanne Miller, Editor joanne.miller@asminternational.org Ed Kubel and Corinne Richards, Contributing Editors Jim Pallotta, Creative Director jim.pallotta@asminternational.org Jan Nejedlik, Layout and Design Kelly Sukol, Production Manager kelly.sukol@asminternational.org Press Release Editor magazines@asminternational.org EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Adam Farrow, Chair, Los Alamos National Lab John Shingledecker, Vice Chair, EPRI Somuri Prasad, Past Chair, Sandia National Lab Jason Sebastian, Board Liaison, QuesTek Innovations LLC Tomasz Chojnacki, Caterpillar Inc. Surojit Gupta, University of North Dakota Nia Harrison, Ford Motor Company Hideyuki Kanematsu, Suzuka National College of Technology Ibrahim Karaman, Texas A&M University Scott Olig, U.S. Naval Research Lab Amit Pandy, LG Fuel Cell Systems Inc. Satyam Sahay, John Deere Technology Center India Anand Somasekharan, Los Alamos National Lab Kumar Sridharan, University of Wisconsin Jaimie Tiley, U.S. Air Force Research Lab Jean-Paul Vega, Siemens Energy ASMBOARDOF TRUSTEES David U. Furrer, President and Chair of the Board Zi-Kui Liu, Vice President Frederick E. Schmidt, Jr., Immediate Past President Raymond V. Fryan, Treasurer Prem K. Aurora Larry D. Hanke Roger A. Jones Diana Lados Thomas M. Moore Jason Sebastian Larry Somrack Judith A. Todd John D. Wolodko William T. Mahoney, Secretary and Chief Executive Officer STUDENT BOARDMEMBERS Aadithya Jeyaranjan, Kenna Ritter, Eli Vandersluis Individual readers of Advanced Materials & Processes may, without charge, make single copies of pages therefrom for per- sonal or archival use, or may freely make such copies in such numbers as are deemed useful for educational or research purposes and are not for sale or resale. Permission is granted to cite or quote fromarticles herein, provided customary acknowledgment of the authors and source is made. The acceptance and publication of manuscripts in Advanced Materials & Processes does not imply that the reviewers, editors, or publisher accept, approve, or endorse the data, opinions, and conclusions of the authors. O ctober is once again upon us, bustling with trade shows, conferences, and other annual meetings. We hope to see many of you at MS&T in Columbus as well as ISTFA later this month in Phoenix. In between these two ASM events, I will attend a testing conference near Munich where I hope to learn more about Germany’s Industry 4.0 initiative and how it has progressed sincemy last visit two years ago. Industry 4.0 is the German government’s strategic plan to establish Germany as a lead market and provider of advanced manufacturing solutions. Drawing inspiration from this initia- tive is another ambitious plan—“Made in China 2025”—China’s state-led policy that aims tomake the country dominant in high-techmanufacturing on an international scale. For ahelpful synopsis of the 2025plan, take a fewminutes to read the excellent backgrounder on the Council on Foreign Relations website, www.cfr.org. In the meantime, suffice it to say that much of the Western world sees the 2025 plan as a potential econom- ic threat. Hence the tariffs we keep hearing about. While some fear an escalating trade war and others welcome a rebalancing of sorts, practical manufacturing realities are front and center. Pricing strategies and supply chain readiness are key concerns, especially as they relate to industries that rely on materials subject to tariffs. How will these affect you? We’d like to hear from our members about how tariffs are impacting business strategies. With regard to supply chain, we’ve included two articles in this issue on crit- ical materials that are used across many areas of advanced manufacturing—rare earth elements (REEs). For example, our cover element praseodymium is used in multiple high-tech products including high power magnets and high strength metals for aircraft engines. China has been the main supplier of REEs since 1988 and provided 95% of the global REE market in 2011. Decisions by China to limit exports and favor its own domestic industries have resulted in price volatility. Now, increasing concern among industrialized nations is prompting a re- surgence in diversifying the REE supply chain. Many new projects are in the works, with several coordinated by the DOE’s National Energy Technology Lab- oratory. Their mission is “to develop an economically competitive and sustain- able domestic supply of REEs and critical materials to assist in maintaining U.S. economic growth and national security.” In addition to the rare earths article beginning on page 26, one of these projects is discussed in more detail in our “Research Tracks” department on page 6. This project at West Virginia University aims to capture REEs from acid mine drainage (AMD), a waste product of coal mining. In a twist on turning lemons into lemonade, it turns out that AMD is ac- tually an excellent source of preprocessed, concentrated rare earth feedstock. On a lighter note, a team of enterprising researchers has finally discovered the microstructural explanation behind why fresh ice cream tastes so delightful- ly creamy. Get the scoop on page 7. frances.richards@asminternational.org A RARE OPPORTUNITY