Powder metallurgy in the era of environment

Abstract

Contributions of the technology of engineering materials especially powdermetallurgy are reviewed. A historical consideration from the proposal of ecomaterial suggests the rapid change of requirements for materials from the viewpoint of global environmental issue from both sides of quality and quantity, namely consideration at the early stage, running through effect, and achievement at the current stage. Six items for environment are "greener resource", "greener production", "higher material efficiency", "environment remediation properties", "hazardous substance free" and "higher recyclability". Especially the role of "higher material efficiency" is magnifying to achieve the goal of the reduction of green house gas of Cool Earth 50. The technologies of fabrication and processing will contribute in wide area of the development of new green energy technology. On the other hand, the development of new green energy materials arise the considerable growth of demand of rare metals. The improvement of resource productivity is necessary to avoid the resource risk. Powdermetallury has the wide application possibility to improve the resource productivity of engineering materials.