BAM Outlines New Materials Strategy: How High-Performance Materials Are Becoming More Robust and Sustainable

11/06/2026

Scanning electron microscope image of the nanostructure of an alloy composed of aluminum, molybdenum, niobium, tantalum, titanium, and zirconium, which is particularly well-suited for catalytic processes.

Source: BAM

Researchers at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) outline in a perspective paper how high-performance materials for batteries, hydrogen technologies, wind turbines, energy conversion, chemical processes, and modern electronics can be designed to be more sustainable, safer, and more resource-efficient in the future. This is intended to address growing dependencies on critical raw materials, limited recyclability, and performance losses in practical use.

Many high-performance materials, without which key future technologies cannot function, contain rare or geopolitically critical raw materials. They can quickly degrade in many applications but are difficult to recycle. The consequences are high costs, new dependencies, and technological dead ends. For this reason, researchers at BAM argue in a perspective article for the journal Current Opinion in Solid State & Materials Science for a strategic shift in materials research: Instead of optimizing materials exclusively for maximum performance, their long-term stability, reusability, and raw material availability should be considered from the start.

Ensuring the sustainability of materials

"In recent years, we have learned to make materials increasingly high-performance. Now we must learn to make them more robust, durable, and sustainable at the same time," says Tilmann Hickel, a materials scientist at BAM and the lead author of the article. "A material is only truly sustainable if it functions over the long term even under real-world conditions."

The new approach focuses on three central design strategies:

• Substitution of critical elements: By specifically replacing critical or scarce elements with a combination of more readily available alternatives, the sustainability of materials is to be improved without compromising performance.
• Control and management of defects: Using "defect engineering," irregularities in the material - such as grain boundaries or nanostructures - are deliberately influenced and utilized to improve properties like stability or function.
• Utilization of chemical diversity ("Managing Diversity"): Instead of relying on a few chemical building blocks, the goal is to specifically combine a wide variety of elements to make materials more robust and meet multiple requirements simultaneously.

Batteries, hydrogen storage, and catalysts in practical testing

This approach is particularly relevant for the energy transition: Lightweight components made of modern, high-strength steels can be used in wind turbines to conserve valuable resources and construct more efficient offshore towers. These components are subjected to high mechanical stresses and must function reliably over long periods. Additionally, there is a growing effort to recycle chemically complex materials, such as these high-performance steels, to a greater extent than before. The researchers at BAM do not see this as a conflict of objectives, but rather as a design challenge. "The success of the energy transition depends not on whether a material achieves peak performance in the lab, but on whether it functions reliably in practice over many years, is repairable, and can be used in the context of fluctuating raw material conditions," says Andrea Stucchi de Camargo, one of the co-authors of the paper.

Early applications show potential

The BAM's perspective paper is based not only on theoretical considerations but also on a multitude of concrete examples from current research: In several material classes, it has already been possible to partially replace critical or scarce elements, maintain functionality over long periods, and resolve typical trade-offs-such as between efficiency and durability. For example, chemically complex battery materials can already partially replace cobalt - an expensive and geopolitically critical raw material-in rechargeable batteries. In fuel cells, new proton-conducting materials function effectively even at temperatures where conventional materials have previously failed, thanks to their chemical diversity. And in catalysts - which are indispensable in many chemical processes - multicomponent metal alloys are proving to be just as efficient as the precious metal platinum.