Sustainable Materials Science - Environmental Metallurgy

The present book is the continuation of a first volume, which dwelt on fairly classical materials science and environmental issues. This second volume of «Sustainable Materials Science» explores more broadly the connection of materials with the biosphere, the anthroposphere and society. There is a shift, therefore, from a STEM approach (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) to an SSH one (Social Sciences and Humanities).

This book is meant for students, researchers, engineers, social scientists and concerned citizens interested in how materials, nature and people interact. This volume concentrates on emissions to air, water and soil, on the connection with health and toxicology, climate change and the c collapse of biodiversity. It shows how materials exhibit a social value, in addition to their engineering properties and economic valuation. Materials also provide ecosystems services in the realm of industrial ecology. They are definitely social constructs. They exhibit agency. Their role, in their value chains, can be described in terms of Actors Network Theory (ANT).

This book is unique in its approach of overarching so many fields of knowledge. There are excellent treatises on materials science and on industrial ecology. However, the connection of materials with the social dimension of sustainability is rarely discussed elsewhere and the pluridisciplinary cocktail of approaches used here is truly new. The book positions itself in a worldview of four intersecting dimensions: materials and energy, space and time.

Jean-Pierre Birat is a metallurgist, who discovered environmental issues as a researcher with a major steel producer. He is a graduate of the Paris School of Mines and UC Berkeley. He has worked in France (IRSID, ArcelorMittal Research), Japan and Belgium (ESTEP), headed the ULCOS program and has been organizing the “Materials and Society” conferences for 14 years. He teaches the content of this book at the University of Science and Technology of Beijing.