In order to extract useful work from a fuel, it must first be burned so as to bring some fluid (usually steam) to high temperatures. Thermodynamics indicates that the higher the temperature, the greater the efficiency of the conversion of heat to work; therefore, the development of materials for combustion chambers, pistons, valves, rotors, and turbine blades that can function at ever-higher temperatures is of critical importance. The first steam engines had an efficiency of less than 1 percent, while modern steam turbines achieve efficiencies of 35 percent or more. Part of this improvement has come from improved design and metalworking accuracy, but a large portion is the result of using improved high-temperature materials. The early engines were made of cast iron and then ordinary steels. Later, high-temperature alloys containing nickel, molybdenum, chromium, and silicon were developed that did not melt or fail at temperatures above 540° C (1,000° F). But modern combustion processes are nearing the useful temperature limits that can be achieved with metals, and so new materials that can function at higher temperatures—particularly intermetallic compounds and ceramics—are being developed.

The structural features that limit the use of metals at high temperatures are both atomic and electronic. All materials contain dislocations. The simplest of these are the result of planes of atoms that do not extend all through the crystal, so that there is a line where the plane ends that has fewer atoms than normal. In metals, the outer electrons are free to move. This gives a delocalized cohesion so that, when a stress is applied, dislocations can move to relieve the stress. The result is that metals are ductile: not only can they be easily worked into desired shapes, but when stressed they will gradually yield plastically rather than breaking immediately. This is a desirable feature, but the higher the temperature, the greater the plastic flow under stress—and, if the temperature is too high, the material will become useless. In order to get around this, materials are being studied in which the motion of dislocations is inhibited. Ceramics such as silicon nitride or silicon carbide and intermetallics such as nickel aluminide hold promise because the electrons that hold them together are highly localized in the form of valence or ionic bonds. It is as if metals were held together by a slippery glue while in nonmetals the atoms were connected by rigid rods. Dislocations thus find it much harder to move in nonmetals; raising the temperature does not increase dislocation motion, and the stress needed to make them yield is much higher. Furthermore, their melting points are significantly higher than those of metals, and they are much more resistant to chemical attack. But these desirable features come at a price. The very structure that makes them attractive also makes them brittle; that is, they do not flow when subject to a high stress and are prone to failure by cracking. Modern research is aimed at overcoming this lack of ductility by modification of the material and how it is made. Hot pressing of ceramic powders, for example, minimizes the number of defects at which cracks can start, and the addition of small amounts of certain metals to intermetallics strengthens the cohesion among crystal grains at which fractures normally develop. Such advances, along with intelligent design, hold the promise of being able to build heat engines of much higher efficiency than those now available.

Diamond drills

Diamond drill bits are an excellent example of how an old material can be improved. Diamond is the hardest known substance and would make an excellent drill bit except that it is expensive and has weak planes in its crystal structure. Because natural diamonds are single crystals, the planes extend throughout the material, and they cleave easily. Such cleavage planes allow a diamond cutter to produce beautiful gems, but they are a disaster for drilling through rock. This limitation was overcome by Stratapax, a sintered diamond material developed by the General Electric Company of the United States. This consists of synthetic diamond powder that is formed into a thin plate and bonded to tungsten-carbide studs by sintering (fusing by heating the material below the melting point). Because the diamond plate is polycrystalline, cleavage cannot propagate through the material. The result is a very hard bit that does not fail by cleavage when it is used to drill through rock to get at oil and natural gas.