Aiming at the academic frontier in the material field and the requirements for the development of advanced materials industry, the first-level discipline focuses on the application of functional materials in new energy, biological medicine, environmental governance and other fields, as well as the cutting-edge molding technology for materials, so as to establish five characteristic disciplinary directions:
A. New Energy Materials: Based on the physicochemical property and composition structure design and control research of materials from the perspective of the atomic, molecular scale and even the macro-scale, the discipline will carry out researches on efficient energy conversion and the design of storage medium and devices, as well as the advanced thermal management materials and systems.
B. Electrical Functional Materials: The discipline emphasizes on applying the theory of phase transition, electrical transport and plastic forming to improve the electrical conductivity and mechanical properties of metals and alloys, develops new conductive functional materials and serves for the development of integrated circuits industry and other industries.
C. Biomedical Materials: The discipline pays special attention to carry out researches on the new preparation technology for 3D printing tissue repair materials, the physical and chemical modification and biocompatibility of medical titanium alloys and other materials used for medical implants, and the design and performance adjustment of materials for the delivery of intellectual drug constituted by molecular-level mesoporous nano-particles.
D. Environment, Materials, Chemistry: The discipline will apply advanced preparation technology for nano-materials to design the environment functional materials, such as the fibrous membrane/ nano-filtration membrane for the treatment of synthetic water, high-performance adsorption and sensitive materials, the photocatalytic materials for semi-conductors; and take advantage of sophisticated research methods in materials science to reveal the physical and chemical mechanisms of materials’ transition, degradation and transformation in the environment.
E. Advanced Material Forming Technology and Equipment: It mainly includes the researches on precision bulk forming technology and equipment, numerical control hydro-forming technology and equipment for plate and tube and micro-forming technology and equipment.
Now, the discipline has 48 faculty advisers which include 12 professors, 5 doctoral supervisors and 21 associate professors. Forty-seven teachers have received the doctorate degree. Thirty-five teachers are Chinese overseas returnees. Three teachers are awarded as the national talents in the Recruitment Program of Global Experts. Ten teachers are awarded as the talents in Shanghai City. The discipline annually enrolls 100–120 postgraduate students.
