As a consumer, you may not realize the importance of non-metallic materials to your daily routine, and you might not even know what they are. These materials make up some of the common products that we use every day, and they also help keep us safe. If you’re not already familiar with them, keep reading to learn about non-metallic materials and why they are so important.
The Different Types of Materials
If you want to get technical, a nonmetal is any element on the periodic table that doesn’t contain metal. In the industrial field, we usually consider non-metallic materials to be any manufacturing or construction material that isn’t made of metal. There are a few products and materials that show up often in the field that fall into this category. Some examples of these non-metallic materials include:
- Rubber
- Ceramics
- Fibers
- Plastic
- Thermosets & Thermoplastics
- Cork
- Carbon
These examples are some of the most common non-metallic materials that make up products that we use every day. They are key to these daily products and the industries that manufacture them.
Importance of Nonmetals
Non-metallic materials are important to many fields for a variety of reasons. First, they have unique properties such as being heat, electricity, and corrosion-resistant. This makes them ideal for safety materials and insulation because they can repel heat and extreme conditions. Due to their electrical resistance, they also have several benefits as electrical insulation materials. They are lightweight and flexible, two qualities that metallic materials do not meet. Overall, they fill a variety of positions that other materials cannot.
Some Non-Metallic Application Examples
You may not even realize the importance of non-metallic materials in your daily life. One notable example of these materials is cable and wire coverings—without the nonmetal cord over electrical cables, we’d be at risk of electrocution every time we plugged a cable into a wall socket. Rubber is a common non-metallic material that shows up everywhere, from car tires to appliance gaskets. Without non-metallic materials, daily life would be a lot different.
If you hadn’t stopped to think about non-metallic materials and why they are so important before reading this article, we hope we have shed some light on these products. Industrial manufacturers rely on non-metallic materials every day, and so do consumers, sometimes without even realizing it.
