Sustainable Materials Science - Environmental Metallurgy

Materials are at the core of our societies and of our economies. They are part
of pressing environmental challenges but they also provide powerful answers.
It is therefore no longer possible to think of materials from the restricted
standpoint of Materials and Engineering Sciences and this book proposes a more
holistic vision of their connection with the Environment and with Society. The
book is meant for students, researchers, engineers, and concerned citizens
interested in how materials, nature and people interact: at the level of raw
materials and energy resources, of innovation and emergence of new materials
functions, of historical continuity with materials of the past, and of
emissions to air, water and soil and thus in connection also with health and
toxicology issues, climate change and collapse of biodiversity. The book
examines how materials relate to society with complex metrics, but also, more
deeply, how they generate eco-social services, and, finally, have agency along
with the people who use them and invent them (Actor Network Theory). This book
is unique in its approach across so many fields. There are many excellent
treatises on materials science and more on industrial ecology. However, the
connection with the social dimension of sustainability is still rarely
discussed and the pluridisciplinary cocktail of approaches used here is truly
new.