Advanced processing of inorganic materials: taking cues from natural materials

Heterogeneous composites with intricate microstructures are widely spread in the natural world where they are needed to fulfil the specific functional demands imposed by their environment. Understanding the principles of the relationship between microstructure and properties has led to new conceptual designs for multifunctional composites. Additionally, strong mineral composites in living organisms or even dense rocks can sometimes be obtained under much milder conditions than what is done industrially. However, applying the multiplicity of nature’s strategies to man-made materials is yet a challenge due to the lack of suitable and easily available processing tools.

During this presentation, we will go through various newly developed processes: a cold sintering method inspired by geological phenomena, the self-assembly of particles driven by the growth of ice crystals, and the magnetically assisted slip casting. These techniques allow us to reproduce the structure or mechanisms found in natural materials while adding flexibility in terms of compositions and/or fabrication time. For instance the geologically inspired cold sintering of carbonates opens a way to densify inorganics materials at room temperature under pressure. The samples obtained after directional freezing can be processed into a fully nacre like ceramic that is both strong and tough. Finally the magnetically assisted slip casting is a processing platform that offers radically new compositional, texture and shape control of inorganic building blocks. Each of these tools provides new ways to design materials for specific purposes: highly directional thermal conductivity or ionic conductivity, resistance to fracture propagation or even decrease of the energy cost production. These materials can ultimately be used for different applications, ranging from high temperature composites to metal-ion batteries.

Bio:
Florian Bouville obtained his Master's degree in Material Sciences at the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon (INSA de Lyon, France) in 2010. He then moved to the South of France for his PhD between three partners: the company Saint-Gobain, the Laboratory of Synthesis and Functionalization of Ceramics and the MATEIS laboratory (INSA de Lyon). His research was based on the freezing of colloidal suspensions and self-assembly to process bio-inspired materials. Since 2014, he is a postdoctoral researcher in the Complex Materials group of Prof. André R. Studart at the Department of Materials at the ETH Zürich. His research field is mainly on new additive manufacturing processes for inorganic materials, with an emphasis on toughening mechanisms and functional properties of architectured ceramics.