2. Applications of Amorphous Alloy/Metallic Glass for Environmental and Energy Engineering, Electronics Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering Fields

In this chapter, metallic glasses and amorphous alloys especially developed for environmental and energy engineering, electronic engineering, and biomedical engineering by the authors’ research group are overviewed. As for the achievements related to the environmental and energy engineering field, the development of the following four types of materials are presented: (1) Ni–Cr–P–B glassy alloys for bipolar plates of PEM fuel cell, (2) Au–Cu–Si–Ag glassy alloy with an extremely low glass transition temperature T_g for nanoimprinting in an energy- and cost-efficient manner, (3) Ni–Nb–Zr amorphous alloys for hydrogen separation, and (4) porous metals prepared by dealloying glassy/amorphous alloys for environmental catalysts. Furthermore, bonding and joining methods for metallic glasses are also evaluated and summarized. Electronic transport properties of Ni–Nb–Zr amorphous alloys are shown. Besides, effects of hydrogen absorption on the electrical resistivity and their possibilities to the applications are discussed in the viewpoint of the electronic engineering. As for the biomedical engineering field, recent progress in the developments of these biomedical BMGs, which include bioinert materials such as Ti-based BMGs, Zr-based BMGs, Fe-based BMGs and biodegradable materials such as Mg-based BMGs, Ca-based BMGs, Zn-based BMGs, and Sr-based BMGs, is described. Moreover, several metallic glasses with low magnetic susceptibility, which are promised materials for development of high-performance MRI, are described in detail.