Conduct, Store, Shield: Functional Materials at Work

Some materials do not just exist—they perform. Conduct, Store, Shield: Functional Materials at Work explores the class of materials engineered to actively enable modern technology by moving energy, holding it, or blocking what should not pass through.
This book is organized around function, not chemistry. It examines how conductive materials move electrons and heat, how storage materials hold charge, ions, or molecules, and how shielding materials protect systems from radiation, interference, corrosion, and wear. The emphasis is on *what materials do* inside real products and infrastructure.
Rather than staying in the lab, the book follows materials into batteries, electronics, buildings, vehicles, and medical devices. Readers learn how tradeoffs between performance, durability, cost, and safety determine which materials scale—and which remain experiments.
This book focuses on:
• How function defines material choice
• Why performance depends on structure and interfaces
• How materials enable energy, electronics, and protection
• Where failures occur when function is misunderstood
• Why functional materials shape system reliability
This book is for engineers, designers, and technologists who build things that must work every day. If materials are the silent workforce behind modern systems, this book shows how they conduct, store, and shield in practice.