[emek]

i am planning to learn chemistry in the university and i saw that i have an option to make a degree in chemistry and material engineering (material science) in the same time(in four years) so i want to know more about this thing more than i could read on the wiki article about material science.

did material science is only about mechanics(and other properties like magnetic and electrical) of materials with some chemical background or actualy can teach me more about chemistry which i wouldn't learn from the B.Sc studying in chemistry?.

did material science has anything to do with synthesis of chemical compounds other than polymers, alloys and cheramics?.

did material science has anything to do with catalysts?.

sorry about the multiple questions but i got realy confused from this term of material science mainly because it relates to so many things.
and sorry if this question is not in the right forum i just don't know where to ask this

[Hunter2]

In our company the materials science department is a tool to check the quality of the products ( here electoplated metal layers like copper, nickel, gold, silver, chromium and others on glas and resin materials.) and to investigate failures on the products. For this different methods are used, like simple micro section of sample parts and check by light microscope, SEM and EDX analysis. Newest tool is FIB Focus ion beam to investigate structures of metals and failures on it.

[Ben Bob2]

I suggest looking at the websites of university research labs to get a feel for what work is being done in materials science.
Here's the page for MIT's (large!) materials research department to get you started:
http://chemistry.mit.edu/research/materials-nanoscience
Unfortunately my university doesn't offer that degree option, so I can't help you with your first question, but this branch of chemistry is the one that interests me the most as well
Good luck.