Material Science & Plastics

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Material science & plastics

From the beginnings in prehistoric times

Materials surround us in our lives in many different forms. They have been in use since ancient times and were initially used completely by chance, such as sharp-edged stones as flints and hand axes or processed natural materials such as wood and bone. This was followed by empirically developed materials such as bronze, cast iron or steel in conjunction with technical developments such as smelting furnaces or the art of forging and thus the processing of gold or copper. The development of materials is closely linked to the development of humans and their cultural history and their mutual influences [1]. The importance of materials for the development of mankind is clearly demonstrated by the fact that entire epochs were named after materials:

Stone Age about 3,000 to 9,000 years BC,
Bronze Age approx. 1,000 to 3,000 years BC,
Iron Age from approx. 1,000 years BC.

This is followed by the Middle Ages, with an increasing interaction between technical progress and material developments. Materials science is concerned with the structure, composition, manufacture and properties of materials and, in particular, with the targeted improvement of application properties [1].

Material development in modern times

In the modern era, improved steels and aluminium alloys, for example, were produced through the application of scientific knowledge. After the First World War, plastics developed from the original substitutes for natural materials such as ivory or mother-of-pearl into a new class of materials. The development of the first plastics also took place in Germany, in particular with the first work on the production and application of Bakelite. Bakelite was processed early on in the Sudetenland in Gablonz from the 1930s by the Wander company. Pressed parts for electrical installations were produced here, and plastic processing was combined with the local glassware production, for example by setting glass jewellery stones in plastic.

After the Second World War in particular, global plastics production accelerated rapidly, which is why this era is also known as the age of plastics. The volume of iron and steel production was exceeded in the 1990s. In 2020, around 400 million tonnes of plastics were produced worldwide, with Asian countries and China in particular driving the increase. Europe is only involved with around 60 million tonnes, with growth stagnating here since around 2005 [1, 2].

Material-economic aspects of plastics

Plastics have gained a broad application profile thanks to their simple and, in comparison with other materials, inexpensive production and processing options as well as the wide range of realisable properties. On the one hand, a few polymers can be produced so cheaply that they are almost unrivalled and, on the other hand, the variety and multitude of realisable plastics is constantly leading to new areas of application. The versatility of properties and applications is unrivalled by any other class of materials. This diversity is otherwise only found in nature, where relatively few known building blocks (approx. 20 amino acids) give rise to a wide variety of structures and functions and a functional control of properties. It is impossible to imagine almost all areas of industry and technology and everyday life in the household, clothing and transport without them. There is no area of technology and daily life in which plastics are dispensable or even play a decisive role. Without plastics, there would be no electrical wiring, no electricity in flats and houses, no electrical appliances, computers and mobile phones, no cars, aeroplanes, etc. due to the lack of insulating material. In the European Union (EU), plastic-based textiles account for around 60 % of clothing and 70 % of household textiles. They are also vital in the truest sense of the word, just think of the everyday applications in the form of disposable syringes, catheters, composite materials, blood bags and other packaging, dental materials, replacement parts for body parts that fail due to wear and tear, accidental injuries or cancer, artificial organs or joints and the numerous analytical and examination devices (NMR, X-ray, ultrasound). They are also indispensable as carriers or capsule material for medicines.

Plastics struggle for social acceptance

The future of plastics will only lie in a more careful use of plastics and, above all, a ban on large-volume plastic waste exports to developing countries and Asia (which also count as material recycling). In this context, the European Environment Agency (EEA) is in favour of a necessary switch to a more sustainable circular economy for plastics. The solution would be to use plastic more sensibly, to recycle it better and more effectively, and to produce it from renewable raw materials. All of this is correct, but requires a greater penetration of materials science into the production, processing and application of plastics, which not only focuses on disposal, but also on the production of improved components with a longer service life or one that is optimally adapted to the intended use. To this end, the author co-initiated a ‘Demonstration Centre for the Circular Sustainability of Materials’ at the Institute for Polymer Materials (IPW), an affiliated institute at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, at the end of the 1990s, which was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and in which corresponding possibilities were tested together with industrial companies.

The potential of the plastics material class

Plastics offer particularly good opportunities for the development of materials with an improved property profile due to their structure and the wide range of design variants. Improvements in mechanical properties such as higher strength, better stiffness or toughness play a central role, which also leads to a reduction in the weight of the components [3]. The mechanical properties are also important for the various other application properties ( thermal, optical, electrical, biological, etc.), as premature mechanical failure often prevents these other properties from becoming effective.

However, all of this requires greater penetration of materials science, whereby the understanding of structures down to the atomic level using electron microscopy methods plays a decisive role [2]. For the important field of mechanical properties, this requires the use of micro- or nanomechanical methods [2]. With their help, nanostructured polymers with improved properties can be obtained. The targeted improvement of the properties of polymer material systems and some possibilities for extending the application potential are referred to in the many individual articles in the encyclopaedia [5]. Another source of information for the explanation of structure-property relationships is the textbook and reference book on ‘Polymer Testing’ [3].

Weblinks

Koßmehl, G.: Startschuss für das Kunststoffzeitalter. Nachrichten aus der Chemie 57 (2009) 11, 1090–1092 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/nadc.200969681/abstract, DOI: 10.1002/nadc.200969681 (Zugriff am 15.04.2025)
Plastics Europe 2022, https://plasticseurope.org/de/
nova-Institut GmbH, Hürth, www.nova-institute.eu

[1]	Michler, G. H.: Werkstoffwissenschaft und Kunststoffe. Schriften der Sudetendeutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften und Künste. Band 43, Forschungsbeiträge der Naturwissenschaftlichen Klasse, Munich (2024) 27–58; see AMK-Library under F 33
[2]	Michler, G. H.: Mechanik–Mikromechanik–Nanomechanik. Vom Eigenschaftsverstehen zur Eigenschaftsverbesserung. SpringerSpektrum (2024), ISBN 978-3-662-66965-5; e-book: ISBN 978-3-66966-2; [1], see AMK-Library under F 34
[3]	Grellmann, W., Seidler, S. (Eds.): Kunststoffprüfung. Carl Hanser Verlag, München (2025), 4th Edition; ISBN 978-3-446-44718-9; e-book ISBN 978-3-446-48105-3; see AMK-Library under A 23
[4]	Michler, G. H.: Kompakte Einführung in die Elektronenmikroskopie. Techniken, Stand, Anwendungen, Perspektiven. SpringerSpektrum Wiesbaden (2019), ISBN 978-3-658-26687-5; e-book ISBN 978-3-658-26688-2; [2]; see AMK-Library under F 21
[5]	Grellmann, W., Bierögel, C., Reincke, K. (Eds.): Wiki-Dictionary "Polymer Testing & Diagnostics" Version 15.0 (2025), https://wiki.polymerservice-merseburg.de/