May 20, 2025 • 20 mins
As innovation transforms the aerospace, energy and defense industries, new materials with advanced properties are needed to meet the moment. Kiran Solanki, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Arizona State University, discusses designing new materials and enhancing existing ones for extreme condition applications.
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(00:14):
This is the Discovery Files podcastfrom the U.S.
National Science Foundation.
Technological advancesare transforming manufacturing industries,
promising more dynamic and efficientproducts that improve people's lives,
strengthen the national economy, createhigher paying jobs, and enhance U.S.
competitiveness on a global stage.
(00:36):
Materials scientists are developingnew materials with advanced properties
to meet the moment.
We're joined by Kiran Solanki,a professor of mechanical
and aerospaceengineering at Arizona State University.
His team specializes in designingnew materials and enhancing existing ones
for extreme condition applications in theaerospace, energy and defense industries.
(00:56):
Professor Solankithank you so much for joining me today.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate the opportunity
to present what we have,and it's great to talk to you.
I think for the first question,we need to do a little bit of terminology
set up here.
And for people that don't really knowwhat are super alloys
and maybe you need to start withwhat's an alloy in general.
So any time when you try to mixtwo components together,
(01:19):
whether A and B, you're trying to mix themtogether, it becomes an alloy.
For example,
if you're trying to mix oil and watertogether, it becomes not a water.
It's not an oil.
It's a mix.
That's what an alloyis, an alloy typically referred to
mostly on the metal side.
So you take ironand you add magnesium to it.
(01:39):
And in thisit becomes in an iron magnesium alloy.
Going back to your question
about super alloy, super alloy terms goes from the foundation
where the metallic alloys are engineeredto have both strength and stability.
When I talk about stability ,it is the temperature stability.
So when you try to heat up something,
(01:59):
it needs to stable so that you can operateat those temperature.
They have internal microstructure.
So like we have internal organsthat operates and that's how we work.
Same way the material has its internalconstitution.
Its internal microstructure that workstogether to give you the properties
that you want at the microscopic levelwhere you are working with it.
(02:23):
Right.
So the internal microstructure is unique,and that gives you high temperature.
They can absorba lot of mechanical stress.
They can operatein a corrosive environment
such as jet engine environment,where you have temperature gas and things
like that.
So traditionallyyou use nickel based alloy.
Now we are changing the gameby introducing
(02:44):
copper based alloybecause they have a unique advantage.
They are specifically electrical andthermal conductivities are pretty high.
Think about itthat if you want your material to work at
higher temperature, you want that materialto cool down faster, right?
So thermal conductivity playsan important role.
So you can use those materialthat aspect of it.
(03:06):
So thinking about this particularbit of research that we're looking at
when you wentto replace the nickel with copper,
how much was that really infront of mind.
The characteristics of copper versusthe characteristics of nickel.
Was it more of an experimentingwith different kinds of metals
and you arrived where you arrived, ordid you know you wanted to try this out?
(03:26):
Everything that they leavebehind has a fingerprint.
So when the new material operatesat very high temperature,
we know what are the fingerprints?
Nickel super alloys dominatesthe aerospace and turbine application.
So jet engines and all kind of outer spaceapplication
aviation's and things like that.
(03:46):
Nickel based super alloys dominate,but they are less conductive.
Okay.
And so what you want to dois you want to replace with a material
that has a more conductivityaspect of it, right.
So we introduce copper tantalumwhich is a copper with tantalum
and copper tantalumwith a little bit of lithium like a point
five atomic percent of lithium,which is minute compared to anything else.
(04:10):
Okay, it's a minuscule.
The idea is thatthey have a high strength,
but also have the electricaland thermal conductivity
that makes it ideal for next generationof electronics,
hypersonic nuclear application with heatdissipation and durability matters.
So it's not just the strength,
but it also provides the heat dissipationaspect of it.
(04:33):
And copperis well known in that aspect of it.
But the copper surfacewhere one point that is that it's say it
is, looks downbecause it's a very soft material.
And our objective was to, make itstronger and bring it to the big league.
Right.
So it might be less obvious placeto start from.
(04:53):
So how important is the crystalinestructure that you have?
So for audience, nano crystallinestructure means that you have a grain
which is a smaller pancake
within the materialto be in the order of 100 nanometers.
Think about hairsize is a micron right in diameter.
So the grain size of a or a pancake withinthe material is very, very small.
(05:17):
You need a transmission electronmicroscope to see it.
You cannot see with the naked eyeor what happens with those pancakes.
Right.
Think about it,is that if you have one pancake,
but then if you havethousands of pancake together
and you try to push them together,they become harder
as compared to individual pancake. Right.
(05:37):
Or again, essentially.
So having a nano crystalline with grainsare just a billionth of a meter wide?
Billionth of a meter wide, Dramaticallyimproves the strength and wear.
But they are very, very unstable.
Yeah, like notorious childrens.
They just want to run around. Okay.
And they want to expand.
And so you want them to be stable.
(06:00):
And that's why we created a carbideanion system
which is finer in structurebut more stable.
That provides the strength and ductilityand heat
dissipation mechanism,at the higher scale.
So traditional if you have a grains
which are billionth of a meter wide,they're unstable.
(06:21):
So they don't get utilized.
And what we are trying to do is
we are trying to utilize those properties,but making them stable.
And for your testing,you had this material
be durable for a very long timein a very extreme environment.
Can you talk a little bit about thatbit of the research?
So the idea is that you do want to,
(06:41):
you know, develop a materialfor the sake of a material, right?
I mean, I can take a recipe and modifya recipe to just make a better tiramisu,
but I want to create
a deconstructed tiramisuin such a way that I create a new dish.
From that analogy point of view,think about having a material
that can not just withstand small amountof temperature or small duration of time,
(07:04):
but a longer duration of time.
And the idea is that you want toexpose them to an extreme environment.
Because think about it, heatof a supersonic flight,
a deep space radiationor corrosive nuclear reactor.
These are all are extreme environment.
If we have to move towards that area
in the next century,and it is important for us to think
(07:27):
outside the boxand bring them into a picture.
Right.
So that's why we subjected these alloyto not just a normal working temperature,
but extended period of timeat the higher temperature.
Durability is not a luxury.
It's a mission which is critical.
That's why we subject themto extreme temperature and and duration.
(07:48):
Right?
It was something like a yearyou had it under that temperature.
Yeah. Over the year that I meanwhy not. Right.
People used to do researchand tend to do the research over a long
period of time before they would present,
now everybody wants to cut that duration
because of all the pushesthat we get around.
So it's important to take a step backwardand really think what is the right way
(08:13):
to not just the right way,but what is the critical,
important information that you wantto give out to your audience.
And that creates a stage, right?
We could have published this paperthree years ago
if we didn'twant to do these kind of research,
but we wanted to see how extremeor how far we can go.
But one should not stop.
That's what the curiosity is.
(08:34):
That's what it drives.
And that's why it motivates usto do what we do.
And I think it's a little bitof a proof of concept when you have it
for that long, that it could be in spaceconditions say.
Yes, so that is true.
One thing that we always think aboutis that how you do a translation, right,
or translation of research and translationof research require proof
(08:55):
of concept over not just a shortperiod of time, a long period of time.
And that's what the industry prefer.
When they want to qualify a partfor a fighter aircraft or anything,
it takes a long period of timefor them to qualify,
and we are trying to help thembridge the gap.
And by telling them ahead of timethat A it will work.
And here is the proof.
(09:16):
You mentioned that you know, differentaspects of different metals
or different chemicals.
As you'retrying to design more resilient materials,
what are the challengesin that design process?
So to answer that question,you want to take a step backward.
You know, why there is a Marvel team,not just one Marvel character, right?
(09:38):
There is a team.
The idea is that you want to havedifferent aspect of the team
to play a role,whether it's a Captain America or Ironman,
you want all of them to be part of a team,to be a successful mission
in the same thing,when you're trying to develop a material,
you want, competing properties
(09:59):
to be optimized strengthand activity, conductivity and stability.
These are all conflicting properties.
You want them to come togetheras a synergistic way.
That way, it helps not only to be ableto apply that material to new application,
but also think about how we can generatenew advanced material
(10:22):
and so we use tools like, you know, alloydesign, thermo mechanical processing,
advanced simulationto engineer that balance and bring that
together, often pushing the boundaryof what physically possible.
Right?
Just because we have an equilibriumstate and status quo doesn't mean
we cannot push.
And that's where the scientistscuriosity comes into play.
(10:44):
And my objective and my way of thinkingis that what's next?
The thing that I don't know, that'swhat drives me and that's how it is.
Whether it's in a relationship,whether it's in a, you know,
family life orientation,whether it's in the scientific community.
This is what drives me.
The curiosity is that you don't knowa certain thing. Right?
(11:05):
And you don't know.And how do you decipher that?
And that's what it drives.
So thinking about the applications,like you mentioned, some of the uses
this could potentially have,
what is the path to getting this into sayaerospace technology.
The path to get into it.
So for examplethink about extreme tech okay.
Extreme techs like hypersonic aircraft.
(11:27):
People are, you know talking about it.
Or space travel, spacepropulsion, nuclear fusion
reactor or high temperaturehigh performance electronics.
Right.
Or even simply thinking about howto generate next generation of frying pan.
Okay, that are optimum from a green energypoint of view.
Right.
And so you need materialsthat are not only
(11:47):
you can take the mechanicalbut thermal load together.
Having these kind of research
where you can show the long termduration gives you the proof of concept.
Then working with industry,you know, partner industry and government
affiliation and trying to come up withhow do we qualify these parts?
Because remember, everything that happensin the lab doesn't get translated.
(12:09):
But when all the community comestogether, then
it makes it easier for us to translatethat research into a component
or an application or a productand in a sustainable way.
Are there challengeswith the materials themselves,
like thinking about critical mineralsand critical elements?
Are there challenges
(12:29):
potentially scaling this technologywith having access to copper?
We have abundance of, abundance of mines,obviously that are resourceful.
The resource that we have,we need to use it very effectively.
We don't want to, you know, overdrain ourself and things like that.
So state of Arizona,where I'm from, Arizona State University,
(12:50):
the copper mine is everywhere,from a copper producing state.
There is abundance of copper.
And there is alwaysa discovery of new mines everywhere,
but obviously utilizing them effectively.
Right.
So the idea is that you make themsuch as strong material,
that you utilize them a low in volume.
So instead of using a brick,you use a small plate.
(13:13):
Do you understand what I'm trying to say.
So the volume shrinks down to smallerbecause the strength is pretty high.
And so those the whole ideathere is always a trade off
between strength, amount of materialthat you have, what you can use
and how much relianceon the foreign government countries
and things like that, and wherewe can procure these kind of aspect of it.
So there is always a balance.
(13:34):
And so that's why, you know,trying to avoid certain type of rare earth
materials, certain types of materialthat are very difficult to mine.
Right, would be the the way forwardwhen we are designing the material,
you have to look at those constraintsand hopefully one day we can translate the
the material directly from the extractionsite to into a finished product,
(13:56):
with some sort of chemical processingand other types of technique
where you don't have to haveso many different places
where you need to use logistically,you know, spread across the country,
you just go directly from mineto a finished product.
Hopefully one day that will arriveand that's the biggest challenge
for the next generation.
Can you talk about how NSF supporthas impacted your career so far?
(14:20):
It's a great question.
It's in a great time.
You know,one word is freedom of innovation.
And that's the key
sentence that I would want to portrayis that freedom of innovation.
NSF support has been foundational,not just for me across the United States.
It allows to explorehigh risk, high reward.
(14:40):
And I'm talking not just based on mypersonal experience as a professor,
but I'm talking when I was a grad student,when I'm undergraduate student
to curiosity, I'm an immigrant.
I came from Indiaand I looked at NSF as a pillar.
Right?
If I can get funding from NSF, thenbasically means that my research is basic.
My research is highrisk, high reward concept.
(15:03):
Right?
Such as this nano crystalline copper
alloy or integrating AI for materialsdiscovery.
Traditional funding mechanismwon't touch that.
And so it's not just funding.
It's about freedom to innovate.
And that's the most important, you know, sentence is freedom to innovate.
And that's what allows NSFfunding projects for us to be able
(15:25):
to do what you are thenand gives us opportunity to talk to you.
Right?
Absolutely.
You mentioned
AI and innovation there, andI want to ask you a little bit about that.
How are you using
AI in your lab, or how are you seeingit being used in materials discovery?
So before the AI right, it's importantto understand the fingerprints.
What are the fingerprints?
(15:45):
So if you understand the fingerprints,then you can train your
AI model fingerprints is incorporatedwithin the database.
So the quality of the database.
Remember, AI is more of a interpolationtechnique, right?
Is not an extrapolation.
And we should not think of itas a simple black box.
It can learn.
But what do you provide to learn?It's important.
(16:06):
And what you put in your stomach,that's how your body is going to react,
is the same way.
It's importantwhat you put into the AI aspect of it.
So to accelerate discovery, right, ofthe new materials such as Copper Tantalum
Lithium in a radiation environmentor anything right?
It's importantto understand the fingerprint
so that I can allow us to design or drivealloy design.
(16:30):
Okay.
There are certain things that we knowbased on know how, but
AI can take some aspect of and it can aidrather than it is the only tool.
No. It is an aid to be ableto advance our understanding.
So my objective is to useAI is to drive the alloy design
(16:51):
as an aid,rather than replacing what I know already.
I think AI and machine learningcan accelerate discovery,
but you have to provide rightfingerprints, right data
set that AI can learn from itand move forward with us.
So for the last question here,I want to end with talking to you
about the futureand what's next in your work.
(17:13):
Where would you like to seealloys going in the next few years?
So what I wanted to do is to be able tothink people about all the fingerprints.
So if something breaks,it leaves behind fingerprint.
Right.
And we want to reverse engineerthose by understanding those fingerprint.
And we need to think aboutfrom a non-equilibrium processing.
(17:36):
Equilibrium means it’s stable.
So if I let the water in oiland try to mix them together,
after five minutesthey separate out, right?
They don't mix together.
But if I agitate them continuously,
they will benot in a stable structure form.
They will be continuously trying to mixtogether whether they can mix or non.
That's a different story.
(17:56):
But you know, you wantthe answer is in non-equilibrium process.
It is to keep developing and pushing
by understanding the fingerprintand not stopping at that.
By seeing, okay, can I use non-equilibriumto capture those fingerprints
that left behindand eliminate this fingerprint
in such a way that I can make materialmore durable.
(18:16):
I’ll give you an example, can we produce
hydrogen through electrolysis process
using aluminum as a basepowder and Army is working on it.
There are other funding agencies
that are looking at the interestin developing a structure
that can actually producehydrogen from any water source,
(18:37):
whether it's a Gatoradeor whether it's a dirty water.
It can produce hydrogen.
And that basically allows usto, you know,
run critical structures,mission oriented stuff
or provide support to a rural areawhere you don't have electricity.
It can also helps youin a water purification aspect of it
where you have water.
So now we need to think about ishow do we make these structures
(19:01):
not just copper tantalum alloybut other kind of structures
or other alloys That helps buildsustainable environment and sustainable
infrastructure, where resourceswill be limited and we can provide them
effectively to help alleviatethe problem that they may have.
For example, say that what is ina water is an issue, right?
And so we are thinking about how we canuse this material, these type of material,
(19:24):
to make water purification, waterharvesting ladder, things like that.
So knowing what you don't knowis important.
Driving force and freedom of innovation.
Thanks to agencieslike the National Science Foundation
and supporting research of mineand their people is critical.
And that's the take homemessages said who I am.
(19:48):
It's not just because of my mom, dad'sand my family's training,
which is important, but also asa scientifically career point of view.
Having a funding agencysuch as National Science Foundation
and other government agency is importantfor us to think outside the box
because humans are always betterwhen they think outside the box, you know?
(20:10):
And that is how we are herein terms of innovation.
Special thanks to Kiran Solanki.
For the Discovery Files, I'm Nate Pottker.
You can watch video versions
of these conversations on our YouTubechannel by searching @NSFscience.
Please subscribe wherever you get podcastsand if you like our program,
share it with a friendand consider leaving a review.
Discover how the U.S.
(20:30):
National Science Foundationis advancing research at NSF.gov.
This is the Discovery Files podcastfrom the U.S.
National Science Foundation.
Technological advancesare transforming manufacturing industries,
promising more dynamic and efficientproducts that improve people's lives,
strengthen the national economy, createhigher paying jobs, and enhance U.S.
competitiveness on a global stage.
(00:36):
Materials scientists are developingnew materials with advanced properties
to meet the moment.
We're joined by Kiran Solanki,a professor of mechanical
and aerospaceengineering at Arizona State University.
His team specializes in designingnew materials and enhancing existing ones
for extreme condition applications in theaerospace, energy and defense industries.
(00:56):
Professor Solankithank you so much for joining me today.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate the opportunity
to present what we have,and it's great to talk to you.
I think for the first question,we need to do a little bit of terminology
set up here.
And for people that don't really knowwhat are super alloys
and maybe you need to start withwhat's an alloy in general.
So any time when you try to mixtwo components together,
(01:19):
whether A and B, you're trying to mix themtogether, it becomes an alloy.
For example,
if you're trying to mix oil and watertogether, it becomes not a water.
It's not an oil.
It's a mix.
That's what an alloyis, an alloy typically referred to
mostly on the metal side.
So you take ironand you add magnesium to it.
(01:39):
And in thisit becomes in an iron magnesium alloy.
Going back to your question
about super alloy, super alloy terms goes from the foundation
where the metallic alloys are engineeredto have both strength and stability.
When I talk about stability ,it is the temperature stability.
So when you try to heat up something,
(01:59):
it needs to stable so that you can operateat those temperature.
They have internal microstructure.
So like we have internal organsthat operates and that's how we work.
Same way the material has its internalconstitution.
Its internal microstructure that workstogether to give you the properties
that you want at the microscopic levelwhere you are working with it.
(02:23):
Right.
So the internal microstructure is unique,and that gives you high temperature.
They can absorba lot of mechanical stress.
They can operatein a corrosive environment
such as jet engine environment,where you have temperature gas and things
like that.
So traditionallyyou use nickel based alloy.
Now we are changing the gameby introducing
(02:44):
copper based alloybecause they have a unique advantage.
They are specifically electrical andthermal conductivities are pretty high.
Think about itthat if you want your material to work at
higher temperature, you want that materialto cool down faster, right?
So thermal conductivity playsan important role.
So you can use those materialthat aspect of it.
(03:06):
So thinking about this particularbit of research that we're looking at
when you wentto replace the nickel with copper,
how much was that really infront of mind.
The characteristics of copper versusthe characteristics of nickel.
Was it more of an experimentingwith different kinds of metals
and you arrived where you arrived, ordid you know you wanted to try this out?
(03:26):
Everything that they leavebehind has a fingerprint.
So when the new material operatesat very high temperature,
we know what are the fingerprints?
Nickel super alloys dominatesthe aerospace and turbine application.
So jet engines and all kind of outer spaceapplication
aviation's and things like that.
(03:46):
Nickel based super alloys dominate,but they are less conductive.
Okay.
And so what you want to dois you want to replace with a material
that has a more conductivityaspect of it, right.
So we introduce copper tantalumwhich is a copper with tantalum
and copper tantalumwith a little bit of lithium like a point
five atomic percent of lithium,which is minute compared to anything else.
(04:10):
Okay, it's a minuscule.
The idea is thatthey have a high strength,
but also have the electricaland thermal conductivity
that makes it ideal for next generationof electronics,
hypersonic nuclear application with heatdissipation and durability matters.
So it's not just the strength,
but it also provides the heat dissipationaspect of it.
(04:33):
And copperis well known in that aspect of it.
But the copper surfacewhere one point that is that it's say it
is, looks downbecause it's a very soft material.
And our objective was to, make itstronger and bring it to the big league.
Right.
So it might be less obvious placeto start from.
(04:53):
So how important is the crystalinestructure that you have?
So for audience, nano crystallinestructure means that you have a grain
which is a smaller pancake
within the materialto be in the order of 100 nanometers.
Think about hairsize is a micron right in diameter.
So the grain size of a or a pancake withinthe material is very, very small.
(05:17):
You need a transmission electronmicroscope to see it.
You cannot see with the naked eyeor what happens with those pancakes.
Right.
Think about it,is that if you have one pancake,
but then if you havethousands of pancake together
and you try to push them together,they become harder
as compared to individual pancake. Right.
(05:37):
Or again, essentially.
So having a nano crystalline with grainsare just a billionth of a meter wide?
Billionth of a meter wide, Dramaticallyimproves the strength and wear.
But they are very, very unstable.
Yeah, like notorious childrens.
They just want to run around. Okay.
And they want to expand.
And so you want them to be stable.
(06:00):
And that's why we created a carbideanion system
which is finer in structurebut more stable.
That provides the strength and ductilityand heat
dissipation mechanism,at the higher scale.
So traditional if you have a grains
which are billionth of a meter wide,they're unstable.
(06:21):
So they don't get utilized.
And what we are trying to do is
we are trying to utilize those properties,but making them stable.
And for your testing,you had this material
be durable for a very long timein a very extreme environment.
Can you talk a little bit about thatbit of the research?
So the idea is that you do want to,
(06:41):
you know, develop a materialfor the sake of a material, right?
I mean, I can take a recipe and modifya recipe to just make a better tiramisu,
but I want to create
a deconstructed tiramisuin such a way that I create a new dish.
From that analogy point of view,think about having a material
that can not just withstand small amountof temperature or small duration of time,
(07:04):
but a longer duration of time.
And the idea is that you want toexpose them to an extreme environment.
Because think about it, heatof a supersonic flight,
a deep space radiationor corrosive nuclear reactor.
These are all are extreme environment.
If we have to move towards that area
in the next century,and it is important for us to think
(07:27):
outside the boxand bring them into a picture.
Right.
So that's why we subjected these alloyto not just a normal working temperature,
but extended period of timeat the higher temperature.
Durability is not a luxury.
It's a mission which is critical.
That's why we subject themto extreme temperature and and duration.
(07:48):
Right?
It was something like a yearyou had it under that temperature.
Yeah. Over the year that I meanwhy not. Right.
People used to do researchand tend to do the research over a long
period of time before they would present,
now everybody wants to cut that duration
because of all the pushesthat we get around.
So it's important to take a step backwardand really think what is the right way
(08:13):
to not just the right way,but what is the critical,
important information that you wantto give out to your audience.
And that creates a stage, right?
We could have published this paperthree years ago
if we didn'twant to do these kind of research,
but we wanted to see how extremeor how far we can go.
But one should not stop.
That's what the curiosity is.
(08:34):
That's what it drives.
And that's why it motivates usto do what we do.
And I think it's a little bitof a proof of concept when you have it
for that long, that it could be in spaceconditions say.
Yes, so that is true.
One thing that we always think aboutis that how you do a translation, right,
or translation of research and translationof research require proof
(08:55):
of concept over not just a shortperiod of time, a long period of time.
And that's what the industry prefer.
When they want to qualify a partfor a fighter aircraft or anything,
it takes a long period of timefor them to qualify,
and we are trying to help thembridge the gap.
And by telling them ahead of timethat A it will work.
And here is the proof.
(09:16):
You mentioned that you know, differentaspects of different metals
or different chemicals.
As you'retrying to design more resilient materials,
what are the challengesin that design process?
So to answer that question,you want to take a step backward.
You know, why there is a Marvel team,not just one Marvel character, right?
(09:38):
There is a team.
The idea is that you want to havedifferent aspect of the team
to play a role,whether it's a Captain America or Ironman,
you want all of them to be part of a team,to be a successful mission
in the same thing,when you're trying to develop a material,
you want, competing properties
(09:59):
to be optimized strengthand activity, conductivity and stability.
These are all conflicting properties.
You want them to come togetheras a synergistic way.
That way, it helps not only to be ableto apply that material to new application,
but also think about how we can generatenew advanced material
(10:22):
and so we use tools like, you know, alloydesign, thermo mechanical processing,
advanced simulationto engineer that balance and bring that
together, often pushing the boundaryof what physically possible.
Right?
Just because we have an equilibriumstate and status quo doesn't mean
we cannot push.
And that's where the scientistscuriosity comes into play.
(10:44):
And my objective and my way of thinkingis that what's next?
The thing that I don't know, that'swhat drives me and that's how it is.
Whether it's in a relationship,whether it's in a, you know,
family life orientation,whether it's in the scientific community.
This is what drives me.
The curiosity is that you don't knowa certain thing. Right?
(11:05):
And you don't know.And how do you decipher that?
And that's what it drives.
So thinking about the applications,like you mentioned, some of the uses
this could potentially have,
what is the path to getting this into sayaerospace technology.
The path to get into it.
So for examplethink about extreme tech okay.
Extreme techs like hypersonic aircraft.
(11:27):
People are, you know talking about it.
Or space travel, spacepropulsion, nuclear fusion
reactor or high temperaturehigh performance electronics.
Right.
Or even simply thinking about howto generate next generation of frying pan.
Okay, that are optimum from a green energypoint of view.
Right.
And so you need materialsthat are not only
(11:47):
you can take the mechanicalbut thermal load together.
Having these kind of research
where you can show the long termduration gives you the proof of concept.
Then working with industry,you know, partner industry and government
affiliation and trying to come up withhow do we qualify these parts?
Because remember, everything that happensin the lab doesn't get translated.
(12:09):
But when all the community comestogether, then
it makes it easier for us to translatethat research into a component
or an application or a productand in a sustainable way.
Are there challengeswith the materials themselves,
like thinking about critical mineralsand critical elements?
Are there challenges
(12:29):
potentially scaling this technologywith having access to copper?
We have abundance of, abundance of mines,obviously that are resourceful.
The resource that we have,we need to use it very effectively.
We don't want to, you know, overdrain ourself and things like that.
So state of Arizona,where I'm from, Arizona State University,
(12:50):
the copper mine is everywhere,from a copper producing state.
There is abundance of copper.
And there is alwaysa discovery of new mines everywhere,
but obviously utilizing them effectively.
Right.
So the idea is that you make themsuch as strong material,
that you utilize them a low in volume.
So instead of using a brick,you use a small plate.
(13:13):
Do you understand what I'm trying to say.
So the volume shrinks down to smallerbecause the strength is pretty high.
And so those the whole ideathere is always a trade off
between strength, amount of materialthat you have, what you can use
and how much relianceon the foreign government countries
and things like that, and wherewe can procure these kind of aspect of it.
So there is always a balance.
(13:34):
And so that's why, you know,trying to avoid certain type of rare earth
materials, certain types of materialthat are very difficult to mine.
Right, would be the the way forwardwhen we are designing the material,
you have to look at those constraintsand hopefully one day we can translate the
the material directly from the extractionsite to into a finished product,
(13:56):
with some sort of chemical processingand other types of technique
where you don't have to haveso many different places
where you need to use logistically,you know, spread across the country,
you just go directly from mineto a finished product.
Hopefully one day that will arriveand that's the biggest challenge
for the next generation.
Can you talk about how NSF supporthas impacted your career so far?
(14:20):
It's a great question.
It's in a great time.
You know,one word is freedom of innovation.
And that's the key
sentence that I would want to portrayis that freedom of innovation.
NSF support has been foundational,not just for me across the United States.
It allows to explorehigh risk, high reward.
(14:40):
And I'm talking not just based on mypersonal experience as a professor,
but I'm talking when I was a grad student,when I'm undergraduate student
to curiosity, I'm an immigrant.
I came from Indiaand I looked at NSF as a pillar.
Right?
If I can get funding from NSF, thenbasically means that my research is basic.
My research is highrisk, high reward concept.
(15:03):
Right?
Such as this nano crystalline copper
alloy or integrating AI for materialsdiscovery.
Traditional funding mechanismwon't touch that.
And so it's not just funding.
It's about freedom to innovate.
And that's the most important, you know, sentence is freedom to innovate.
And that's what allows NSFfunding projects for us to be able
(15:25):
to do what you are thenand gives us opportunity to talk to you.
Right?
Absolutely.
You mentioned
AI and innovation there, andI want to ask you a little bit about that.
How are you using
AI in your lab, or how are you seeingit being used in materials discovery?
So before the AI right, it's importantto understand the fingerprints.
What are the fingerprints?
(15:45):
So if you understand the fingerprints,then you can train your
AI model fingerprints is incorporatedwithin the database.
So the quality of the database.
Remember, AI is more of a interpolationtechnique, right?
Is not an extrapolation.
And we should not think of itas a simple black box.
It can learn.
But what do you provide to learn?It's important.
(16:06):
And what you put in your stomach,that's how your body is going to react,
is the same way.
It's importantwhat you put into the AI aspect of it.
So to accelerate discovery, right, ofthe new materials such as Copper Tantalum
Lithium in a radiation environmentor anything right?
It's importantto understand the fingerprint
so that I can allow us to design or drivealloy design.
(16:30):
Okay.
There are certain things that we knowbased on know how, but
AI can take some aspect of and it can aidrather than it is the only tool.
No. It is an aid to be ableto advance our understanding.
So my objective is to useAI is to drive the alloy design
(16:51):
as an aid,rather than replacing what I know already.
I think AI and machine learningcan accelerate discovery,
but you have to provide rightfingerprints, right data
set that AI can learn from itand move forward with us.
So for the last question here,I want to end with talking to you
about the futureand what's next in your work.
(17:13):
Where would you like to seealloys going in the next few years?
So what I wanted to do is to be able tothink people about all the fingerprints.
So if something breaks,it leaves behind fingerprint.
Right.
And we want to reverse engineerthose by understanding those fingerprint.
And we need to think aboutfrom a non-equilibrium processing.
(17:36):
Equilibrium means it’s stable.
So if I let the water in oiland try to mix them together,
after five minutesthey separate out, right?
They don't mix together.
But if I agitate them continuously,
they will benot in a stable structure form.
They will be continuously trying to mixtogether whether they can mix or non.
That's a different story.
(17:56):
But you know, you wantthe answer is in non-equilibrium process.
It is to keep developing and pushing
by understanding the fingerprintand not stopping at that.
By seeing, okay, can I use non-equilibriumto capture those fingerprints
that left behindand eliminate this fingerprint
in such a way that I can make materialmore durable.
(18:16):
I’ll give you an example, can we produce
hydrogen through electrolysis process
using aluminum as a basepowder and Army is working on it.
There are other funding agencies
that are looking at the interestin developing a structure
that can actually producehydrogen from any water source,
(18:37):
whether it's a Gatoradeor whether it's a dirty water.
It can produce hydrogen.
And that basically allows usto, you know,
run critical structures,mission oriented stuff
or provide support to a rural areawhere you don't have electricity.
It can also helps youin a water purification aspect of it
where you have water.
So now we need to think about ishow do we make these structures
(19:01):
not just copper tantalum alloybut other kind of structures
or other alloys That helps buildsustainable environment and sustainable
infrastructure, where resourceswill be limited and we can provide them
effectively to help alleviatethe problem that they may have.
For example, say that what is ina water is an issue, right?
And so we are thinking about how we canuse this material, these type of material,
(19:24):
to make water purification, waterharvesting ladder, things like that.
So knowing what you don't knowis important.
Driving force and freedom of innovation.
Thanks to agencieslike the National Science Foundation
and supporting research of mineand their people is critical.
And that's the take homemessages said who I am.
(19:48):
It's not just because of my mom, dad'sand my family's training,
which is important, but also asa scientifically career point of view.
Having a funding agencysuch as National Science Foundation
and other government agency is importantfor us to think outside the box
because humans are always betterwhen they think outside the box, you know?
(20:10):
And that is how we are herein terms of innovation.
Special thanks to Kiran Solanki.
For the Discovery Files, I'm Nate Pottker.
You can watch video versions
of these conversations on our YouTubechannel by searching @NSFscience.
Please subscribe wherever you get podcastsand if you like our program,
share it with a friendand consider leaving a review.
Discover how the U.S.
(20:30):
National Science Foundationis advancing research at NSF.gov.
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