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Weekly UpdatesEXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Nanotechnology is already' attracting considerable investment by both governments and private industry worldwide. When perfected, advanced nanotechnology will streamline and reduce manufacturing costs in significant ways. The result will be a $1 trillion sales market for nanotech components in the next 15 years.
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Investors are looking at the new technologies that will be the next critical driver of economic growth. Information technology has offered astounding global growth over the past few decades. Biotechnology has developed from its nascent research beginnings into incredible commercial applications and social benefits. The next force that we expect to have a global tectonic effect is, ironically, so small that it cannot be seen with the human eye.
Nanotechnology is used to rearrange molecules so that essentially every atom can be put in its most efficient place. Ralph Merkle, Ph.D., of the Georgia Institute of Technology describes it this way: "Manufactured products are made from atoms, and the properties of those products depend on how those atoms are arranged. If we rearrange the atoms in coal, we can make diamond. If we rearrange the atoms in sand and add a few other trace elements, we can make computer chips. If we rearrange the atoms in dirt, water, and air, we can make potatoes."
3i, a venture capital group, defines nanotechnology as "any application of science that deals with elements between 100 nanometers and a tenth of a nanometer in size in which size is critical to the application's ultimate purpose." One nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. Put another way, there are 1 million nanometers in 1 millimeter. For perspective, the width of a human hair is approximately 80,000 nanometers.
This emerging technology has already attracted considerable investment: More than 30 countries have launched public nanotechnology research and development programs. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that government R&D funding grew fivefold between 1997 and 2002, to an estimated $2 billion per year. In the private sector, large multinational firms such as IBM, Dow Chemical, L'Oreal, Hitachi, and Unilever, as well as numerous startups have increased their nanotechnology research initiatives.
George Whitesides, a prolific Harvard chemist, reckons that nanotechnology is now about halfway through the list of discoveries needed for the field to reach maturity. He believes that it will develop much as biotechnology has--through intensive research and experimentation that yield totally new ways of doing things. We are only now beginning to see the wide uses and effects for this nascent technology Jack Uldrich and Deb Newberry's recently published book The Next Big Thing is Really Small put it this way:
"This is not to say that nanotechnology is a far-off, fuzzy, futuristic technology It is not. It has already established a beachhead in the economy. The clothing industry is starting to feel the effects of nanotech. Eddie Bauer, for example, is currently using embedded nanoparticles to create stain-repellent khakis. This seemingly simple innovation will impact not only khaki-wearers, but dry cleaners, who will find their business declining; detergent makers, who will find less of their product moving off the shelf; and stain-removal makers, who will experience a sharp decrease in customers. This modest, fairly low-tech application of nanotechnology is just the small tip of a vast iceberg--an iceberg that threatens to sink even the 'unsinkable' companies."
Perhaps one day there really will be tiny, self-propelling structures that seek out and destroy cancer cells inside the human body. Nanotech could eventually change the nature of health care--moving us from what GE has called a "see and treat" world to a "predict and prevent" world. Hundreds of other applications are under consideration. In time, nanotechnology could change all of materials science, all of computing, and much of biology A transformation of that scope could generate serious concerns over nano-ethics. It is unlikely, though, that anything would cause the nanotechnology baton to drop. We are watching a classic technological revolution unfold. The critical question for business people is where are we in that revolution.
Initial commercial applications
The miniaturization of key items or products is a natural first step in the development of this industry. In November 2003, the New York Times featured an article about the world's smallest electrical guitar built. Nanotechnology labs around the world are working on Lilliputian-sized everything. Electronics and communications companies are especially interested in this new technology to reduce the size of microprocessors, sensors, transistors, and the like.
The nano-sizing craze is one of the first waves of commercialization of this technology The information technology industry's relentless pursuit of Moore's Law is leading to the necessary investment for the expensive research and manufacturing investment required. Overall, this is driven by the competitive nature of the industry and an enormous commercial market for nanotech applications.
Despite this development, scientists are still debating what nanotech is exactly. Nano means one-billionth, so 1 nanometer (1nm) is one-billionth of a meter (a DNA molecule measures 2.5nm across); however, the American government's National Nanotechnology Initiative defines nanotechnology as anything involving structures less than 100nm in size.
To bring timely consensus to the field, the Nanotechnology Standards Panel of the American National Standards Institute has initiated the groundwork for establishing standards in this emerging technology
Small things behave differently
Nanotechnology is not just the miniaturization of products. When moving from the micro level (1 micrometer is one-millionth of a meter) to the nano level, materials exhibit new properties. For example, "large" particles of titanium (on the micron scale) absorb sunlight and are therefore used in some sunscreens. Unfortunately, these large particles show up white on lifeguards' noses. The nanoscale titanium particles absorb exponentially more light due to greater surface area. As a result, they appear translucent, leaving lifeguards with more natural-looking noses. Nanotech sun block is also longer lasting on the skin. Oxonica, a United Kingdom spinout from Oxford University, is one of several firms working on sun block that contains such nanoparticles.
In addition to a larger surface area, "nanoparticles in the three-to-five nanometer range behave a lot like gas particles," says Peter Dobson, a professor of engineering science at Oxford and the founder of several nanotechnology startups. Solids this size will float or dissolve more readily than their larger counterparts that sink.
A company called pSiOncology has developed a tiny particle of silicon that is soluble in water. Normally, silicon is not water soluble, but the difference lies in nanoscale irregularities etched onto the particle's surface. The benefit is that drugs can be attached to its surface and then injected into the body. This technology may be used to inject chemotherapy drugs directly into a tumor, which minimizes the damage to other tissues.
Nano-enhanced materials offer new combinations of material characteristics. Scientists can use nanotechnology to produce materials that are both hard and tough, whereas hard materials are usually brittle and tough materials usually soft. General Motors uses a nanoparticle-enhanced polymer to produce a material for a running board on a minivan or sport utility vehicle. This running board is hard and tough enough to withstand use but weighs significantly less than the steel with which most cars are made.
Manufacturing applications
Not only do small things behave differently, they also challenge generally accepted limitations. From frictionless machine bearings that will never wear out to nanomachines that can extract energy from their surroundings, researchers are using nanotechnology to defy the boundaries of materials science to appear to violate the second law of thermodynamics.
When perfected, advanced nanotechnology, also known as molecular manufacturing, is expected to streamline production and reduce manufacturing costs so that they do not greatly exceed the cost of the required raw materials and energy. With every molecule in order, production will generate less waste and be more efficient, producing low-cost, high-quality nano-engineered products. The result would be products that are cheaper to buy and to produce--products that have the potential to raise living standards around the world. Mihail Roco, the National Science Foundation senior advisor on nanotechnology, predicts a future $1 trillion sales market for such nanotech components in the next 15 years.
Nanotechnological developments could also lead to a cleaner environment. The ability to create filtration systems at a molecularly precise level would improve purification of wastewater and gas from fossil fuels. Research is being done to develop nanotechnological components that break down toxic wastes or the development of catalysts that decompose pollutants. Scientists also hope that advances in molecular manufacturing will develop solar power into a cost-effective energy solution.
Several energy-saving measures could benefit from a nanotech makeover. Energy experts think that nanotechnology might help reduce transmission losses by rewiring the electricity grid with superconducting cable. More efficient light-emitting diodes could replace wasteful incandescent and fluorescent lighting. Engineering materials that consume large quantities of energy during the manufacturing process, such as steel, aluminum, and titanium, could be replaced by resilient nanocomposites and carbon nanotubes.
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