Humanity has used many materials in history, such as ceramics, steel and plastics. The Wall Street Journal believes that we are on the cusp of the next era, namely "composite materials", such as the carbon fiber materials used in wind turbines, racing cars and the Boeing 787.

The advantages of carbon fiber materials are that they are lighter and stronger than metal components, and require fewer manufacturing resources. However, the manufacturing process is labor-intensive, so it is expensive and is suitable for the aerospace industry. However, technological advancements have made it possible to produce composite components cheaper and faster.

In addition to the aerospace industry, composite materials can also be used in consumer electronics such as smartphones and wearable devices, or in military weapons.

Some start-up companies develop composite materials to manufacture various small objects quickly and at low cost, such as Arris Composites in California, 9T Labs in Zurich and Orbital Composites in Silicon Valley.

9T Labs hopes to have at least one customer announce a bicycle made from its components by the end of the year; Orbital Composites is contracted by the U.S. military to develop composite manufacturing for satellites, rockets, drones and hypersonic aircraft.

While composite materials may look like futuristic technology, they can be traced back to an ancient material technology, namely wood. Wood is lightweight, strong, can withstand compression and tension, is easily worked into other shapes, and is prone to splitting along a consistent axis of grain. Likewise, composites can suffer from many obstacles, such as cracking between layers.

Jeremy Koh, director of advanced materials solutions at ST Engineering, pointed out that the biggest challenge with new composite materials is that they will be damaged due to fatigue over time. Trials are currently underway to replace titanium bolts on aircraft with composite materials, manufactured using Arris technology.

Preliminary tests show that composite bolts perform just as well as metal bolts, but are lighter, easier to manufacture, potentially cheaper, and independent of the geopolitics of Russia and China, the main titanium suppliers.

As for consumer electronics applications of new composite materials, it will not take that long to enter the market. Arris is in talks with at least one company about using composite materials for virtual reality devices, as weight has been a major obstacle for such devices. In the future, consumers will have the opportunity to buy smartphones and electric vehicles made of composite materials instead of metal.