Iranian researcher wins Sweden’s prestigious scientific award

Iranian researcher Mohsen Esmaily, at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, has received several funding sources and awards for his great achievement in the field of Materials Science and Engineering, the most recent of which is the prestigious prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Dr. Esmaily’s research has been centered on the microstructure and properties of light metallic alloys, such as Magnesium and aluminum alloys, as well as metal matrix composites (MMCs), used in many engineering sectors. “These materials are extremely important for future sustainable society,” said he.

Magnesium is the lightest structural metal, yet the most reactive one. In fact, the poor corrosion resistance of Magnesium alloys remains as a vital barrier to their widespread adoption in transportation industries. Thus, Magnesium alloys producers have been, for over a century, working to improve the corrosion behavior by developing new, more corrosion-resistant, alloys and also by means of various coatings systems.

Esmaily’s work demonstrates, in a completely new way, that it is possible to significantly improve alloys corrosion properties through tailoring the alloys’ microstructure, which increases the possibilities to reduce the weight of vehicles.

“In transportation industry (e.g., cars, trains and airplanes) where every kilogram reduced is crucial, there would be a transition to the newly developed Magnesium alloys, meaning that the new compounds are 30 percent lighter than today’s most commonly used lightweight components made of Aluminum alloys. This is virtually a big step forward when it comes to reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions,” Esmaily said.

The results of his research shows that the newly developed Magnesium alloys exhibit up to four times better corrosion resistance than conventional (or commercial) alloys. The new knowledge has been made possible through a combination of unique exposure modes and a variety of advanced methods of analysis.

“We will be able to create cast Magnesium alloys constructions that corrode much slower and also have better strength than before by controlling the microstructure of the alloy,” he said.

Over the last two years, Mohsen Esmaily has written over 30 articles, most of which are already published and the rest will be published in scientific journals in near future. In these papers, 22 of which he has penned as the main author, he reports possible solutions for a more extensive usage of Magnesium and Aluminum alloys in vehicles. Several of the articles published by Dr. Esmaily and his co-workers have had a major impact and were the year’s most downloaded from different high-ranking journals in the year 2015.