Additive manufacturing of multiscale NiFeMn multi-principal element alloys

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Pennsylvania successfully synthesized a multiscale multi-principal element alloy (MPEA) composed of Ni, Fe, and Mn, through an integrated processing framework of DIW-based additive manufacturing combined with chemical dealloying. The work provides a new pathway to accelerate both the discovery and the production of novel multiscale MPEAs and have great potential in energy conversion and storage applications.

MPEAs, a class of metal alloys based on random mixing of multi-principal elements, exhibits improved mechanical and functional properties over traditional alloys. However, two challenges limit their practical applications, namely the difficulty of fabricating a large mass of bulk nanostructured MPEAs, and the vast compositional space needed to explore for high-throughput discovery.

The Solution: A collaboration of two research teams from University of Massachusetts and University of Pennsylvania successfully synthesized a composition-tailored hierarchically porous NiFeMn MPEAs via an integrated approach of DIW-based additive manufacturing combined with chemical dealloying. Bulk samples could be prepared without extended dealloying time thanks to the efficient diffusion enabled by multiscale pores. A facile control of composition is achieved through adjusting the ratio of starting metal powders, offering a pathway for high-throughput material discovery as shown by the case study of composition-dependent oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in the work.

The Future: The integrated approach, when combined with machine-learning-based simulation, can be utilized for exploring the vast compositional space of MPEAs. This is of great importance since the composition-performance relationship is often non-linear, complicated by the underlying phases and microstructures of the MPEAs, thus necessitates a comprehensive and high-throughput materials discovery.

The Impact: Findings gained in this work are expected to broaden the possibilities for bulk fabrication of nanostructured MPEAs. Moreover, in this work composition-dependent OER performance is shown as a case study, while this technique can be extended beyond OER to many other compositionally complex alloy systems for electrochemical reactions such as hydrogen evolution reactions and oxygen reduction reactions towards a myriad of renewable energy applications.

This work has been recently published in the online edition of Materials Futures, a prominent international journal in the field of interdisciplinary materials science research.

Reference:

Shahryar Mooraj, Jintao Fu, Shuai Feng, Alexander K. Ng, Eric B. Duoss, Sarah E. Baker, Cheng Zhu, Eric Detsi and Wen Chen. Additive Manufacturing of Multiscale NiFeMn Multi-Principal Element Alloys with Tailored Composition.  2024 Mater. Futures 3 045103.