ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | JULY/AUGUST 2024 6 METALS | POLYMERS | CERAMICS ALUMINUM ALLOY IMPROVES ELECTRIC VEHICLE THERMAL STABILITY Researchers at the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) developed an aluminum alloy for electric vehicles that dramatically improves thermal stability. The team identified a new mechanism by which the nanostructures inside aluminum alloys work and found that the alloys they developed improved thermal stability by up to 140% compared to materials from leading overseas companies. Existing aluminum battery enclosure materials continuously deteriorate due to heat emitted by the battery, leading to a significantly increased risk of accidents as electric vehicles age. The newly developed aluminum alloy can enhance thermal stability by incorporating various trace elements to the existing 6000 series aluminum alloy, thereby delaying the thermal deterioration of enclosure materials due to heat generation. LOW-COST ULTRAPURE TITANIUM Scientists at The University of Tokyo created a cheaper method for making deoxygenated titanium. The novel oxygen removal protocol could benefit technological development and environmental sustainability. Producing ultrapure titanium is significantly more expensive than manufacturing steel and aluminum due to the substantial use of energy and resources in preparing high-purity titanium. The Tokyo researchers focused their efforts on developing a cheap, easy way to prepare it and facilitate product development for industry and common consumers. “Industry mass-produces iron and aluminum metal—but not titanium metal, because of the expense of removing the oxygen from the ore,” explains lead researcher Toru H. Okabe. U. S. Steel Corp., Pittsburgh, and Nippon Steel Corp., Tokyo, received all regulatory approvals outside of the United States related to the proposed $14.1 billion takeover of U. S. Steel by Nippon Steel. Both companies expect the transaction to be complete later this year. ussteel.com, nipponsteel.com. Editor’s Note: At the time of publication, the deal was under confidential review with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. BRIEF “We use an innovative technology based on rare-earth metals that removes oxygen from titanium to 0.02% on a per-mass basis.” A critical step in the researchers’ protocol is reacting molten titanium with yttrium metal and yttrium trifluoride, or a similar substance. The result is a low-cost, solid, deoxygenated titanium alloy, and the reacted yttrium can be recycled for further use. A highlight of the work is that even titanium scrap that contains large amounts of oxygen can be processed in this manner. The research is an important step forward in making more efficient use of high-purity titanium than at present. A limitation of this work is that the resulting deoxygenated titanium contains yttrium, up to 1% by mass—yttrium can influence the mechanical and chemical properties of titanium alloy. After addressing the yttrium contamination problem, applications to industrial manufacturing will be straight forward. www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en. Researchers have e iciently removed oxygen from high-oxygenconcentration titanium, which might help reduce the production cost of this versatile metal. Courtesy of Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo. HRTEM images of the (a) Base alloy, (b) Ag-added alloy, and (c) Ge-added alloy aged at 200°C for 2 h. Courtesy of Journal of Materials Research and Technology, 2023, doi.org/10.1016/j.jmrt.2023.12.053. (c) (a) (b)
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