Innovative Materials and Nanotechnologies for Sustainable Design

In recent decades, and even more in recent years, the quantity of materials for design and manufacturing has been growing as fast as they are broadening the characteristics that distinguish them. The strong and sudden development of materials sciences has consequently led to a widespread renunciation by designers of updating their own material records:the information relating to new materials are sometimes too technical and difficult to interpret, it is often too difficult to make them available, and in any case the number and the variants of these materials are so excessive that they put the traditional model of design in troublesome situations. Although it is difficult for the designer to be constantly up to date on the matter, it must be pointed out that the consequent lack of this knowledge inevitably becomes a lost opportunity; a truly innovative design is nowadays strengthened by an intelligent and imaginative exploration of new materials, even purposely designed if necessary. Since there is no reason to predict a decline in the speed of development of new innovative materials, it is reasonable to expect that the choice of materials can become even more complex in the years to come, even in connection with new (nano)technologies. It is now more important than ever to understand the properties of materials, whether they involve engineering aspects, such as physico-chemical properties or mechanical properties, or whether they involve sensory-expressive perception, to be able to design, taking advantage of the potential and limits of the material chosen for the design. It’s important to underline that materials have never before evolved as quickly and the range of properties has never been as broad as they are now. Thanks to nanotechnologies the industry is seeing the advent of a revolution that will result in new materials functionalised to meet the most innovative demands of the market and increase the added value of products.