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Metals infused with nanoparticles may be the future of materials technology if a new metal developed by materials scientists at UCLA is any indication.

According to UPI, the new metal is magnesium infused with silicon carbide nanoparticles. While infusion with nanoparticles has been around for a while, the UCLA team has pioneered a technique that allows infusion to enhance all properties of a metal including plasticity, the ability of a material to yield in order to be shaped. The new magnesium metal is stronger and lighter with an impressive strength to weight ratio that researchers say makes it a worthy contender for industrial applications.

"It's been proposed that nanoparticles could really enhance the strength of metals without damaging their plasticity, especially light metals like magnesium, but no groups have been able to disperse ceramic nanoparticles in molten metals until now," Xiaochun Li, the principal investigator on the research said in a press release.

Researchers were able to evenly disperse silicon carbide nanoparticles, improving density. They said that the magnesium developed through the technique is the first of many advances expected to arrive.

"With an infusion of physics and materials processing, our method paves a new way to enhance the performance of many different kinds of metals by evenly infusing dense nanoparticles to enhance the performance of metals to meet energy and sustainability challenges in today's society. The results we obtained so far are just scratching the surface of the hidden treasure for a new class of metals with revolutionary properties and functionalities," Li said."