Star Energy Assets: Liquid Metals presents opportunities for China

Speaking of liquid metal, we may recall the metal robot of the main villain in Terminator 2, where the metal liquid in the body after receiving the trauma can repair its wound surface on its own, and can transform the body into various forms. At present, with the progress of science and technology, the "black technology" that can only be seen in science fiction movies has now been applied to reality.

At the end of 2019, ASUS publicly released a mobile phone that uses "liquid metal" in its flip camera, and Apple announced that they have made a new breakthrough in the field of "liquid metal". At present, if you are an Apple user, you must be familiar with the iPhone4S, because the Apple SIM card slot is made of this material. Don't underestimate this small part, it uses the cutting-edge technology of "liquid metal", durable in life, resistant to friction and scratches, strong, and the magnet cannot absorb it. As early as August 2010, Apple obtained an exclusive license to use liquid metal technology and applied the technology to related products.

01

What is a liquid metal?

A liquid metal is an amorphous metal that can be seen as a mixture of positive ionic fluids and free electron gases. Liquid metal is also an amorphous, liquid-liquid metal. To put it simply, liquid metal is actually an alloy, and at room temperature we see that it is solid, which is called "liquid" because low melting point can be converted from solid to liquid at a specific temperature.

02

Liquid metals have advantages over traditional materials

Liquid metals have a unique atomic structure in which their atomic arrangement is completely disordered. This makes liquid metal a material that offers new possibilities for metal parts manufacturing and components that could not be achieved with the original machining process. Its basic performance is reflected in three aspects:

High strength, high hardness. The strength of liquid metals is more than 10 times that of aluminum and magnesium alloys, and more than 1.5 times that of stainless steel and titanium alloys. Among light alloys, the specific strength (strength per unit density) of liquid metals is also the highest. Now common business applications are mobile phone SIM card slot frame, mobile phone card retriever, etc.

Extremely wear and corrosion resistant. Potential applications include automotive trim parts and products used under harsh conditions: protective products, dental products, industrial equipment, food processing equipment components, marine products, medical equipment, outdoor sports equipment components, etc.

Liquid metals are outstanding in light alloys in terms of heat dissipation and electromagnetic shielding, and because of their plasticity, liquid metals also have a lot of applications in the semiconductor industry.

03

The application scenarios of liquid metals are more extensive

At present, liquid metals have been widely used in power electronics, consumer electronics, medical, sporting goods, aerospace and military, automobiles and other fields, with a large potential market space. In power electronics, it is mainly used in transformers, inductors, sensors, etc.; in the field of consumer electronics, liquid metal is mainly used in mobile phone card holders, bracelet cases, mobile phone frames, card lock blocks, USB interfaces, optical lens brackets, etc.; in the medical field, liquid metals are mainly used in surgical scalpels, splints and nails for fixed fractures, and metal materials for minimally invasive medical devices.

In the field of biomedicine, Liu Jing's team from the Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, its pioneering liquid metal nerve connection and repair technology, is considered to be a "shocking medical breakthrough"; the liquid metal angiography created, the liquid metal embolization vascular therapy tumor technology, the alkali metal fluid thermochemical ablation therapy tumor method, the injectable solid-liquid phase conversion type low melting point metal bone cement, the liquid metal flexible exoskeleton technology, the printed liquid metal flexible radiation protection technology, the injectable implantable medical electronic technology, etc. It also attracts wide attention from the industry with its new academic concepts and technological breakthroughs.

In the field of thermal control and energy, the liquid metal chip cooling technology was conceived and proposed for the first time by the team of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from 2000 to 2002, and subsequently aroused widespread concern from scholars and industry at home and abroad. In the practical application field, SONY will apply this technology to PS5 products, in order to further avoid the damage of high temperature to the core components, Sony applies liquid metal to GPUs and CPUs and liquid metal has good thermal conductivity, making the heat transfer efficiency faster than that of traditional silicon grease.

04

Who masters advanced material technology

Whoever has a vast market

Since the outbreak of the Sino-US trade war, the United States has blocked and suppressed key technologies in many key areas of China, and among the 35 card neck technologies announced in 2018, material-related fields account for the majority. With the core breakthrough of the mainland in key areas and key technologies, material science and technology has developed by leaps and bounds, and has broken through the monopoly of overseas technologies in key material technologies, and even surpassed foreign technologies to reach the international leading level in some fields.

Conclusion

At present, through years of development and technological update and iteration in the field of liquid metals, the mainland has gradually become a leader in this field, and related technologies are gradually being applied to major fields to form a strong market competitive advantage. In this pattern, we should pay more attention to the head enterprises like Zhongxuan Liquid that have excellent technology and market in the field of liquid metals. Because, with the further commercialization of liquid metal material technology, the growth of corporate value will be more rapid.