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Want a Sustainable Society? Get the Materials Scientists to Work, Professor Says
05/05/2025 - In the years ahead, the work of materials scientists will take on even greater societal significance as the world contends with metals scarcity and climate change, a respected materials science researcher and scholar said Monday.
Delivering the opening technical presentation at AISTech 2025, Tadashi Furuhara, a professor at the Tohoku University Institute for Materials Research (IMR) in Sendai, Japan, said he believes materials science research must be brought to bear on technologies enabling efficient use and reuse of elements and higher efficiencies in energy production and consumption.
Whereas materials science in the past has driven advances in science and technology itself, materials science now must also help build a sustainable society, he said.
Furuhara noted that by 2050 overall consumption of metals is expected to grow five times their current levels. In some cases, he said, the forecasted demand is several times greater than the reserves of those metals.
“We need to think about environmentally friendly material development and not just focusing on producing new materials,” he said.
Solutions, he said, will require cross-order cooperation.
“We need to work together for a sustainable future,” he said.
AISTech, AIST’s annual conference and exposition, is taking place this week in Nashville, Tenn., USA.
Whereas materials science in the past has driven advances in science and technology itself, materials science now must also help build a sustainable society, he said.
Furuhara noted that by 2050 overall consumption of metals is expected to grow five times their current levels. In some cases, he said, the forecasted demand is several times greater than the reserves of those metals.
“We need to think about environmentally friendly material development and not just focusing on producing new materials,” he said.
Solutions, he said, will require cross-order cooperation.
“We need to work together for a sustainable future,” he said.
AISTech, AIST’s annual conference and exposition, is taking place this week in Nashville, Tenn., USA.
