The Department of Commerce highlighted exports of advanced materials from the United States to Mexico as business opportunities.

In 2023, Mexican imports of these products from around the world totaled $31.113 billion dollars, a 5.5% year-over-year decline.

Conversely, exports from Mexico of advanced materials were $11.739 billion, an increase of 7.1% over 2022.

Exports of advanced materials

This product group is comprised of electronic circuits and microstructures, certain electrical machinery and apparatus, fluid control instruments, automatic regulating instruments, and certain instruments and apparatus.

In Mexico, advanced materials were initially developed and produced in small volumes by a few research and development centers. 

But now, according to the Department of Commerce, Mexico has more than 200 companies producing advanced materials in relatively high volumes. 

Nanotechnology

Producers of advanced materials are grouped into clusters in the State of Mexico and the El Bajío region of central Mexico.

Nanotechnology is a critical component in the production of advanced materials in the country. 

With nanotechnology, Mexican designers create advanced materials that exhibit specific attributes, including lightness, porosity, strength and capillarity. Lighter materials are in constant demand by the automotive and aerospace industries.

These materials find applications in sectors such as automotive, construction, filtration substrates, sensing materials, biotechnology and aerospace. 

According to the Department of Commerce, advanced materials also include composites that have found applications in almost every field. 

Mexican consumers of composite materials are found in the automotive, biomedical, cosmetics, pharmaceutical and other industries.

Advanced materials have been developed to have superior properties to traditional materials in terms of strength, durability, conductivity, ability to withstand high temperatures, flexibility and transparency, among other characteristics.

For example, nanomaterials are designed at the nanometer scale and have unique properties due to their extremely small size. They include carbon nanotubes, graphene and silver nanoparticles.