Views from the world

Big Picture on Nanoscience

Wellcome Trust — 2007-02-10T21:51:20Z

Dealing with things smaller than 100 nanometres (for comparison, a human hair is 80 000 nm wide), nanotechnologies are fast becoming the 'next big thing' (only not so big at all). Yet while nano-enthusiasts say they are the future, nano-sceptics are concerned about potential dangers.

From nano-hype to nano-nonsense, this issue in the 'Big Picture' series sifts sense from speculation.

What are nanotechnologies and what might they do for us ?
What (if anything) do we need to worry about ?
How are potential benefits weighed against possible downsides ?
What role should the public play in the process of nano development ?

Issue 2 : June 2005

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(reproduced with permission of the the Wellcome Trust)

Productive nanosystems : the physics of molecular fabrication

K. Eric Drexler — 2007-02-10T21:43:41Z

Fabrication techniques are the foundation of physical technology, and are thus of fundamental interest. Physical principles indicate that nanoscale systems will be able to fabricate a wide range of structures, operating with high productivity and precise molecular control. Advanced systems of this kind will require intermediate generations of system development, but their components can be designed and modelled today.

To read more...

Molecular Engineering : An Approach to the Development of General Capabilities for Molecular Manipulation

K. Eric Drexler — 2007-02-10T21:37:08Z

Development of the ability to design protein molecules will open a path to the fabrication of devices to complex atomic specifications, thus sidestepping obstacles facing conventional microtechnology. This path will involve construction of molecular machinery able to position reactive groups to atomic precision. It could lead to great advances in computational devices and in the ability to manipulate biological materials. The existence of this path has implications for the present.
This article was first published in Drexler, K.E. (1981) "Molecular engineering : An approach to the development of general capabilities for molecular manipulation" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 78:5275-5278

To read more...

Top Ten Nanotech Products

Josh Wolfe — 2007-02-10T20:58:18Z

Our third annual Nanotech Product Guide reveals some interesting trends. The overwhelming majority of commercially-available nanotech products on the market today are in sports. Last year, we featured Nanogate/Holmenkol's Cerax Nanotech Ski Wax, Babolat Tennis Racquets using nanotubes and longer-lasting nanoparticle tennis balls from Inmat/Wilson. In 2004, sports led the way for nanotechnology commercialization yet again. From golf balls to footwarmers, athlete skin care to new tennis racquets (from Wilson, again), consumer demand for better exercise equipment and materials is still driving nanotech revenues (01/12/2005)

Military Uses of Nanotechnology – the coming scary cold war of Nano-bots and Nano-materials – the invisible deadly Nano-bombs

Staff Reporter — 2007-02-08T20:22:32Z

Nanotechnology is the generic name given to the production or use of very small, or "nano" particles. These are particles that are less than 100 nanometers or about one-thousandth the width of a human hair. A nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter.

Nanotechnology is likely to be extremely important in the future as it allows materials to be built up atom by atom. This can lead to the development of new materials that are better suited for their purpose. There are several branches of nanotechnology, but most of them are in an early stage with the only nanotechnologies that are commercially available at present being ultra fine powders and coatings. These are used in a variety of products including sunscreens and self-cleaning glass, but the list of materials being developed commercially using nanotechnology is likely to grow at a very fast rate.

Other forms of nanotechnology being developed include tiny sensors called nano-units, of which some simple types are available: "smart materials" that change in response to light or heat; "nano-bots" - tiny mobile robots that have yet to be developed but are theoretically possible; and self-assembling nano-materials that can be assembled into larger equipment.

Military use of Nano-technologies in immediate use can be classified in three main ways. Militaries of many countries have established weapons with Nano-techs.

First, nano-materials massively damage the lungs. Ultra fine particles from diesel machines, power plants and incinerators can cause considerable damage to human lungs. This is both because of their size (as they can get deep into the lungs) and also because they carry other chemicals including metals and hydrocarbons in with them.

Second, nano-particles can get into the body through the skin, lungs and digestive system. This may help create free radicals that can cause cell damage. There is also concern that once nano-particles are in the bloodstream, they will be able to cross the blood-brain barrier.

Third, the human body has developed a tolerance to most naturally occurring elements and molecules that it has contact with. It has no natural immunity to new substances and is more likely to find them toxic.

Fourth, the most dangerous Nano-application use for military purposes is the Nano-bomb that contain engineered self multiplying deadly viruses that can continue to wipe out a community, country or even a civilization.

Militaries all around the world is about to embark upon the use of Nano-materials, Nano-bots and Nano-technologies that will make current Weapons of mass Destruction look miniscule.

Armies of enormous strengths can be wiped out slowly without even fighting a single battle. The soldiers may never know that they have been nano-poisoned.

A "Small" History of Nanotechnology

Jerry Flattum — 2007-02-05T20:39:15Z

In the Beginning: Richard Feynman

In 1959, theoretical physicist Richard Feynman asked a couple of questions: "Why cannot we write the entire 24 volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica on the head of a pin?" He also asked, "I put this out as a challenge: Is there no way to make the electron microscope more powerful?"

No doubt the folks of the American Physical Society at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) were not only puzzled but also intrigued. Actually, Feynman upped the ante on his “…on the head of pin” question by asking why we simply couldn't store every book ever written in the same amount of space.

The talk Feynman gave was later published in the February 1960 issue of Caltech's Engineering and Science, which many say represents the first introduction to nanotechnology. Feynman never used the word “nanotechnology.”

The full transcript of his talk, entitled, “There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” is available at http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html

Feynman further speculated that since we already knew cells were capable of manufacturing processes and doing other things, why then, couldn't humans manufacture things at the same level? He took the question further and asked why we couldn't manufacture not only at the cellular level, but better yet, at the atomic level.

Computers were so large they filled entire rooms. Was there a way to miniaturize them? Well, a few microchips and a few decades later, we did just that.

But it was in 1974 Tokyo Science University professor Norio Taniguchi coined the term “nanotechnology.” So “nano” was well on its way already in competing with “micro.”

Taniguchi was concerned with manufacturing materials with nanometer tolerances. At the nano level, gravity becomes less an issue whereas the strength of materials (tolerance) becomes a greater one. There is very little information on Tniguchi, other than cited references to two of his works, “Nanotechnology: integrated processing systems for ultra-precision and ultra-fine products” and “On the Basic Concept of Nano-Technology.”

Back to Feynman, he further asked, “What are the limitations as to how small a thing has to be before you can no longer mold it?” Essentially he saw the current (late 50s) manufacturing processes of cutting, soldering, stamping and drilling as clumsy, with end results taking up too much space and materials requiring vast amounts of energy to operate. Feynman wasn't just being theoretical; he was being practical. What Feynman envisioned were machines build at the molecular level.

Feynman was aware of the problems surrounding his atomic/sub-atomic factory building ideas. All things do not simply scale down in proportion and there is the problem that materials stick together by molecular attractions (Van der Waals). The laws of Quantum mechanics, chemistry and physics would come into question. New kinds of forces, effects and processes would be discovered, altering outcomes, if not the very paradigm in which scientists interpreted the world.

Atomic Theory

Miniaturization was certainly nothing new in 1959; after all, the electron microscope was in full use by then. But, as far back as the 5th Century B.C., Democritus and Leucippus, determined that matter was made up of tiny, indivisible particles in constant motion. Apparently Aristotle disagreed. Aristotle must've had a lot of pull since the idea of indivisible particles was shelved until the 1600s, when Sir Isaac Newton proposed an atomic model in The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, or The Principia as it came to be commonly known.

English chemist and physicist, John Dalton (1766-1844), developed the first useful atomic theory of matter around 1803. Some of the details of Dalton's atomic theory have since been refuted, but the core concepts (that chemical reactions can be explained by the union and separation of atoms, and that these atoms have characteristic properties) became the foundations of modern physical science.

Another British physicist, J.J. Thomson (1856-1940), made a new discovery about the atom. At the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, Thomson was experimenting with currents of electricity inside empty glass tubes, known as "cathode rays." He proposed that the mysterious cathode rays were streams of particles much smaller than atoms. He called these particles "corpuscles," which later became known as electrons. He suggested these electrons made up all the matter in atoms. Before Thomson, scientists thought that the atom was indivisible, being the most fundamental unit of matter.

Thomson also discovered the isotope. Isotopes are atoms of a chemical element whose nuclei have the same atomic number but different atomic weights. The atomic number corresponds to the number of protons in an atom. Isotopes of each element contain the same number of protons. Atomic weights are the result of the differences in the number of neutrons in the nuclei.

More on J.J. Thomson at the Nobel Prize website: http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1906/thomson-bio.html

In 1911, Thomson's student, Ernest Rutherford, suggested a new model for the atom. Through his experiments in positive and negative charges within the atom, he determined there was a center of the atom, now known as the nucleus. Electrons, it turned out, revolved around the nucleus. Rutherford also discovered the proton and neutron.

More on Ernest Rutherford, also at the Nobel Prize website: http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1908/rutherford-bio.html

Around 1914, Swedish Physicist Niels Bohr, advanced atomic theory further in discovering that electrons traveled around the nucleus in fixed energy levels.

More on Niels Bohr, also at the Nobel Prize website: http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1922/bohr-bio.html

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Shortly after WW2, atomic theory became mainstream, so to speak. Before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was created, nuclear regulation was the responsibility of the Atomic Energy Commission, first established in the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. The law was replaced with the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which made the development of commercial nuclear power possible. The Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 abolished the AEC and replaced it with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Through the Commission History Program, the origins and evolution of NRC regulatory policies are documented in four volumes of nuclear regulatory history published by the University of California Press. These volumes are:

Controlling the Atom: The Beginnings of Nuclear Regulation 1946-1962 (1984) (NUREG-1610).

Containing the Atom: Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment, 1963-1971 (1992)

Permissible Dose: A History of Radiation Protection in the Twentieth Century (2000)

Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective (2004)

United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov/

CERN

CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the world's largest particle physics center, concerned with what matter is made of and what forces hold it together. At CERN, the primary tools scientists use are accelerators, which accelerate particles to almost the speed of light and detectors to make the particles visible.

CERN is also responsible for the development and creation of the World Wide Web. The WWW was designed to improve and speed-up the information shared between physicists working in different universities and institutes all over the world.

CERN conducts research into the fundamental particles that bind together to form structures on all scales, from the proton built from three quarks, through atoms and molecules, liquids and solids, to the huge conglomerations of matter in stars and galaxies.

There are four basic forces involved. The most familiar basic force is gravity. Gravity plays less of a role in particle physics. A stronger fundamental force is electromagnetism. The electromagnetic force binds negative electrons to the positive nuclei in atoms, and underlies the interactions between atoms that give rise to molecules and to solids and liquids.

Inside atomic nuclei and at even smaller structures (nucleons), two forces come into play: the weak force and the strong force. The weak force leads to the decay of neutrons (which underlies many natural occurrences of radioactivity) and allows the conversion of a proton into a neutron (responsible for hydrogen burning in the centre of stars). The strong force holds quarks together within protons, neutrons and other particles.

CERN established the Standard Model of Particles and Forces. The model involves 12 matter particles (6 quarks and 6 leptons) and 4 force carrier particles to summarize all that we currently know about the most fundamental constituents of matter and their interactions. CERN scientists are working on what is called the Grand Unified Theory (GUT). The GUT is an attempt to unify all the forces of Nature in a single “super force.”

NASA

In 1980, NASA conducted a study called, "Advanced Automation for Space Missions," by request of then President Jimmy Carter, at a cost of Nearly 12 million.

The study set forth a realistic proposal for a self-replicating automated lunar factory system. The proposal never gained much attention. However, it did serve as a prelude to factory building and replication at the nanotechnological level. What was speculation in the 1980's has become near reality 25 years later.

A full transcript of the study is available at: http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/

From Chapter 5 of the study: "...designing the factory as an automated, multiproduct, remotely controlled, reprogrammable Lunar Manufacturing Facility (LMF) capable of constructing duplicates of itself which would themselves be capable of further replication. Successive new systems need not be exact copies of the original, but could, by remote design and control, be improved, reorganized, or enlarged so as to reflect changing human requirements."

In the study, NASA gave Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann most of the credit for the conception of of machine reproduction. It was circa 1966 when John von Neumann began studying automata (self-operating machine) replication. Von Neumann had also contributed to quantum theory, was the co-inventor of the theory of games, and he he worked on the Manhattan Project (involved in the design of the implosion mechanism for the plutonium bomb).

Later, he became involved in the ENIAC computer project at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania. The ENIAC was a military project begun in 1945-1946, and is considered to be the forerunner of today's modern computer. Prior to the ENIAC, which later became UNIVAC, there were only simple relay machines and analog devices, such as the differential analyzer. Von Neuman was not only interested in processing speed, but also how large machine were analogous to the complex behavior of living systems.

The NASA study did not ignore the risks and dangers of self-replicating machines to human evolution. The combination of artificial intelligence and self-replicating machines, NASA warned, could become adversarial. Without further research, there was no telling what kinds of behaviors such a machine might exhibit or if it would develop a sort of “machine sociobiology.” Benefits for the future of human evolution depended on a mission for automation and machine replicative techniques to “improve, protect, and increase the productivity of human society,” the study reported.

In an unusal merger of science fiction and scientific speculation, the study quoted science fiction author, Isaac Asimov's, “Asimov‘s Three Laws of Robotics,” which state: 1) A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; 2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with tile First or Second Laws. Asimov came up with these laws circa 1950.

However, these rules did not reflect future developments in artificial intelligence, such as the ability of robots or evolving machines to understand the concept of God or creation, or even possess a “soul. Could such a machine learn to view humans in the same way humans view monkeys—a lower form of species in our evolutionary journey?

Behind the NASA study, not only were there major developments in atomic and nuclear theory, but also in the understanding of biological reproduction at the molecular or biochemical level. The similaries between biological replication and machine replication were acknowledged: (1) follow instructions to make machinery, (2) copy the instructions, (3) divide the machinery, providing a sufficient set in each half, (4) assign a set of instructions to each half, and (5) complete the physical separation.

Eric Drexler

A few years later, Eric Drexler borrowed Norio Taniguchi's term “nanotechnology,” and explored the subject in much greater depth. In 1986 he wrote the book, Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology. Drexler did not have a PhD when he wrote the book. In 1991, Drexler's MIT doctoral dissertation was called, Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation. MIT awarded Drexler a PhD in Molecular Nanotechnology, the first degree of its kind.

Drexler established the field of molecular nanotechnology.

His work showed quantum chemists and synthetic chemists how the knowledge of bonds and molecules could serve as the basis for further development of manufacturing systems of nanotechnlogy, and show physicists and engineers how to scale down their concepts of macroscopic systems to the level of molecules.

Drexler is now the founder and Chairman of The Foresight Institute. The Institute's primary focus is on molecular nanotechnology.

Foresight Institute: http://www.foresight.org/
Eric Drexler: http://e-drexler.com/
Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation: http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/nanosystems.html
Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology: http://www.foresight.org/EOC/

Since Drexler, numerous individuals have contributed to nanotechnology, in both theory and practice. One of these individuals is Richard E. Smalley.

Richard E. Smalley He was the founding director of the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice from 1996 to 2002, and is now Director of the new Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory at Rice University, Houston, Texas.

He is widely known for the discovery and characterization of C60 (Buckminsterfullerene, a.k.a the “buckyball”), a soccerball-shaped molecule that, together with other fullerenes such as C70, now constitutes the third elemental form of carbon (after graphite and diamond).

(Fullerene: Any of various cagelike, hollow molecules composed of hexagonal and pentagonal groups of atoms, and especially those formed from carbon, that constitute the third form of carbon after diamond and graphite).

His current research is on buckytubes, elongated fullerenes that are essentially a new high tech polymer, following on from nylon, polypropylene, and Kevlar. Buckytubes conduct electricity, unlike any of the previous wonder polymers. Bukytubes are likely to find applications in nearly every technology where electrons flow. In February of 2000 this research led to the start up of a new company, Carbon Nanotechnologies, Inc. The company is now developing large-scale production and applications of buckytubes.

Richard E. Smalley: Carbon Nanotechnologies, Inc.: http://www.cnanotech.com/

At the turn of the new Millennium, nanotechnology has become not only very real but also a major driver in the future of human evolution. There is not a single industry that is not now or will be in the future, affected by nanotechnological development, so much so, there is a website dedicated to jobs in nanotech: http://www.workingin-nanotechnology.com/

What is Nanotechnology ?

CRN — 2007-01-31T22:14:40Z

The Meaning of Nanotechnology

When K. Eric Drexler (right) popularized the word 'nanotechnology' in the 1980's, he was talking about building machines on the scale of molecules, a few nanometers wide—motors, robot arms, and even whole computers, far smaller than a cell. Drexler spent the next ten years describing and analyzing these incredible devices, and responding to accusations of science fiction. Meanwhile, mundane technology was developing the ability to build simple structures on a molecular scale. As nanotechnology became an accepted concept, the meaning of the word shifted to encompass the simpler kinds of nanometer-scale technology. The U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative was created to fund this kind of nanotech: their definition includes anything smaller than 100 nanometers with novel properties.

Much of the work being done today that carries the name 'nanotechnology' is not nanotechnology in the original meaning of the word. Nanotechnology, in its traditional sense, means building things from the bottom up, with atomic precision. This theoretical capability was envisioned as early as 1959 by the renowned physicist Richard Feynman.

I want to build a billion tiny factories, models of each other, which are manufacturing simultaneously. . . The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom. It is not an attempt to violate any laws; it is something, in principle, that can be done; but in practice, it has not been done because we are too big. — Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winner in physics

Based on Feynman's vision of miniature factories using nanomachines to build complex products, advanced nanotechnology (sometimes referred to as molecular manufacturing) will make use of positionally-controlled mechanochemistry guided by molecular machine systems. Formulating a roadmap for development of this kind of nanotechnology is now an objective of a broadly based technology roadmap project led by Battelle (the manager of several U.S. National Laboratories) and the Foresight Nanotech Institute.

Shortly after this envisioned molecular machinery is created, it will result in a manufacturing revolution, probably causing severe disruption. It also has serious economic, social, environmental, and military implications.

Four Generations

Mihail (Mike) Roco of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative has described four generations of nanotechnology development (see chart below). The current era, as Roco depicts it, is that of passive nanostructures, materials designed to perform one task. The second phase, which we are just entering, introduces active nanostructures for multitasking; for example, actuators, drug delivery devices, and sensors. The third generation is expected to begin emerging around 2010 and will feature nanosystems with thousands of interacting components. A few years after that, the first integrated nanosystems, functioning (according to Roco) much like a mammalian cell with hierarchical systems within systems, are expected to be developed.

Some experts may still insist that nanotechnology can refer to measurement or visualization at the scale of 1-100 nanometers, but a consensus seems to be forming around the idea (put forward by the NNI's Mike Roco) that control and restructuring of matter at the nanoscale is a necessary element. CRN's definition is a bit more precise than that, but as work progresses through the four generations of nanotechnology leading up to molecular nanosystems, which will include molecular manufacturing, we think it will become increasingly obvious that "engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale" is what nanotech is really all about.

Conflicting Definitions

Unfortunately, conflicting definitions of nanotechnology and blurry distinctions between significantly different fields have complicated the effort to understand the differences and develop sensible, effective policy.

The risks of today's nanoscale technologies (nanoparticle toxicity, etc.) cannot be treated the same as the risks of longer-term molecular manufacturing (economic disruption, unstable arms race, etc.). It is a mistake to put them together in one basket for policy consideration—each is important to address, but they offer different problems and will require different solutions. As used today, the term nanotechnology usually refers to a broad collection of mostly disconnected fields. Essentially, anything sufficiently small and interesting can be called nanotechnology. Much of it is harmless. For the rest, much of the harm is of familiar and limited quality. But as we will see, molecular manufacturing will bring unfamiliar risks and new classes of problems.

General-Purpose Technology

Nanotechnology is sometimes referred to as a general-purpose technology. That's because in its advanced form it will have significant impact on almost all industries and all areas of society. It will offer better built, longer lasting, cleaner, safer, and smarter products for the home, for communications, for medicine, for transportation, for agriculture, and for industry in general.

Imagine a medical device that travels through the human body to seek out and destroy small clusters of cancerous cells before they can spread. Or a box no larger than a sugar cube that contains the entire contents of the Library of Congress. Or materials much lighter than steel that possess ten times as much strength. — U.S. National Science Foundation

Dual-Use Technology

Like electricity or computers before it, nanotech will offer greatly improved efficiency in almost every facet of life. But as a general-purpose technology, it will be dual-use, meaning it will have many commercial uses and it also will have many military uses—making far more powerful weapons and tools of surveillance. Thus it represents not only wonderful benefits for humanity, but also grave risks.

A key understanding of nanotechnology is that it offers not just better products, but a vastly improved manufacturing process. A computer can make copies of data files—essentially as many copies as you want at little or no cost. It may be only a matter of time until the building of products becomes as cheap as the copying of files. That's the real meaning of nanotechnology, and why it is sometimes seen as "the next industrial revolution."

My own judgment is that the nanotechnology revolution has the potential to change America on a scale equal to, if not greater than, the computer revolution. — U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)

The power of nanotechnology can be encapsulated in an apparently simple device called a personal nanofactory that may sit on your countertop or desktop. Packed with miniature chemical processors, computing, and robotics, it will produce a wide-range of items quickly, cleanly, and inexpensively, building products directly from blueprints.

Artist's Conception of a Personal Nanofactory
Courtesy of John Burch, Lizard Fire Studios (3D Animation, Game Development)

Exponential Proliferation

Nanotechnology not only will allow making many high-quality products at very low cost, but it will allow making new nanofactories at the same low cost and at the same rapid speed. This unique (outside of biology, that is) ability to reproduce its own means of production is why nanotech is said to be an exponential technology. It represents a manufacturing system that will be able to make more manufacturing systems—factories that can build factories—rapidly, cheaply, and cleanly. The means of production will be able to reproduce exponentially, so in just a few weeks a few nanofactories conceivably could become billions. It is a revolutionary, transformative, powerful, and potentially very dangerous—or beneficial—technology.

How soon will all this come about? Conservative estimates usually say 20 to 30 years from now, or even much later than that. However, CRN is concerned that it may occur sooner, quite possibly within the next decade. This is because of the rapid progress being made in enabling technologies, such as optics, nanolithography, mechanochemistry and 3D prototyping. If it does arrive that soon, we may not be adequately prepared, and the consequences could be severe.

We believe it's not too early to begin asking some tough questions and facing the issues:

	- Who will own the technology?
	- Will it be heavily restricted, or widely available?
	- What will it do to the gap between rich and poor?
	- How can dangerous weapons be controlled, and perilous arms races be prevented?

Many of these questions were first raised over a decade ago, and have not yet been answered. If the questions are not answered with deliberation, answers will evolve independently and will take us by surprise; the surprise is likely to be unpleasant.

It is difficult to say for sure how soon this technology will mature, partly because it's possible (especially in countries that do not have open societies) that clandestine military or industrial development programs have been going on for years without our knowledge.

We cannot say with certainty that full-scale nanotechnology will not be developed with the next ten years, or even five years. It may take longer than that, but prudence—and possibly our survival—demands that we prepare now for the earliest plausible development scenario.

What's So Special about Nanotechnology and Nanoethics ?

Fritz Allhoff, Patrick Lin — 2007-01-31T22:14:36Z

Nanoethics, or the study of nanotechnology's ethical and social implications, is an emerging but controversial field. Outside of the industry and academia, most people are first introduced to nanotechnology through fictional works that posit scenarios – which scientists largely reject – of self-replicating “nanobots” running amok like a pandemic virus.[1] In the mainstream media, we are beginning to hear more reports about the risks nanotechnology poses on the environment, health and safety, with conflicting reports from within the industry.

Given this growing interest in nanoethics, as well as related confusion, this special volume of the International Journal of Applied Philosophy is dedicated to a survey of some of its central issues. But before we dive into that symposium, we must first address a persistent meta-controversy surrounding the status of nanotechnology itself, which casts questions about the legitimacy of nanoethics as its own discipline.

Some people have complained that nanotechnology is not a real discipline in the first place, or at least not a clearly defined one, thereby making its ethics equally ill-defined. Others argue further that nanoethics is not entitled to its own discipline, because it does not raise any new questions that are not already considered by, say, bioethics or computer ethics. In this introduction, we will explain why nanoethics is a discipline in its own right as well as set some context for the papers that follow in this special volume.

1. What is nanotechnology?

First, we need to be clear on what nanotechnology is before we can appreciate the ethical and social questions that arise from it as well as the controversy surrounding it. Nanotechnology is hailed by the US government and industry organizations as “The Next Industrial Revolution.”[2] It is a new category of technology that involves the precise manipulation of materials at the molecular level or a scale of roughly 1 to 100 nanometers, with a nanometer equaling one-billionth of a meter. How small exactly is a nanometer? As one journalist had put it, “If a nanometer were somehow magnified to appear as long as the nose on your face, then a red blood cell would appear the size of the Empire State Building, a human hair would be about two or three miles wide, one of your fingers would span the continental United States, and a normal person would be about as tall as six or seven planet Earths piled atop one another.”[3]

Working at the nanoscale, it turns out that ordinary materials can have extraordinary properties, about which we are still learning. At the nanoscale, quantum physics begins to play a key role in the behavior of materials, and the large surface-to-volume ratio of elements means that they are much more reactive. So, for instance, things that are brittle at the ordinary scale may possess super-strength at the nanoscale, and things that do not normally conduct electricity now might at the nanoscale, among other surprising changes to physical and chemical properties.

As a specific example of how properties change with scale, aluminum is used ubiquitously to make harmless soda cans, but in fine powder form, it can explode violently when in contact with air. But it is not only about the size: by precisely manipulating common elements at the nanoscale, scientists can fashion new materials. For example, carbon atoms bound together in a relatively-loose configuration may create coal or graphite found in pencils; in a tighter configuration, carbon makes diamonds; and an even more precise configuration, it creates carbon nanotubes, one of the strongest materials known to man, estimated to be up to 100 times stronger than steel at one-sixth the weight.

Given these new properties, nanotechnology is predicted to enable such things as: smaller, faster processing chips that enable computers to be imbedded in our clothing or even in our bodies; medical advances for dramatically less-invasive surgeries and more-targeted drug delivery; lighter, stronger materials that make transportation safer and energy-efficient (e.g., enabling us to travel farther into space); new military capabilities such as energy weapons and lighter armor; and countless other innovations. Some even predict that nanotechnology will extend our lifespan by hundreds of years or more by enabling cellular repair, which might slow, halt, or reverse the aging process.[4] And because nanotechnology enables us to manipulate individual atoms – the very building blocks of nature – some have predicted that we will be able to create virtually anything we want in the future.[5]

Today, however, research is still continuing on the basic science, so we are years if not decades away from most of the fantastic nanotechnology products that have been predicted. Nevertheless, companies are beginning to productize more of their research to create commercially-viable applications based on nanomaterials. These nanotechnology products are quickly entering the marketplace today, from stain-resistant pants to scratch-resistant paint to better sports equipment to more effective cosmetics and sunblock.

In fact, Procter & Gamble, as one example of a leading consumer goods company, announced in 2006 that it is looking to incorporate nanotechnology into its products.[6] Other notable companies made similar statements recently as well, such as BASF's plan to invest US$221 million in nanotechnology research and development over just the next three years.[7]

2. Is nanotechnology its own discipline?

Despite massive spending in nanotechnology by corporations and countries – the US government alone is expected to invest over US$1.2 billion in 2007 through its National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) – there is still a debate over whether “nanotechnology” is a legitimate field.

At first glance, this controversy seems strange, given that so much is being invested in nanotechnology worldwide. If nanotechnology were not a real field, then why does it command so much attention and money? Many people, however, believe nanotechnology to be merely a convergence or amalgamation of several existing disciplines, such as chemistry, biology, physics, material science, engineering, information technology and so on, which has some truth to it.

As an example of biology inspiring engineering, scientists are creating artificial noses with nano-sized sensors which can accurately “sniff” out smells that are otherwise imperceptible to humans.[8] Similar work has been done to create artificial compound eyes[9], borrowing from nature's design of insect eyes, as well as artificial skin[10] using nanomaterials to mimic the sensitivity of touch. And entire research centers have been created to explore this rich field, including Georgia Tech's Center for Biologically Inspired Designs (CBID) and UC Berkeley's Center for Interdisciplinary Bio-Inspiration in Education and Research (CIBER).

But does drawing from other scientific areas preclude nanotechnology from being a field in its own right? Consider the similar and ongoing debate in philosophy of science whether chemistry, biology and other established sciences can be reduced to simply physics. One line of thought is that these other fields operate they way they do given the laws of physics that govern how atoms, molecules and their dependent structures interact with each other and the world. But no matter which side of the debate we take here, no one on either side actually suggests that chemistry and biology, for example, do not constitute their own disciplines; so it would be inconsistent to insist that nanotechnology – even if it substantially borrows from other fields – cannot be meaningfully discussed or investigated as a field of its own. As with these other scientific fields, nanotechnology seems to bring something unique to the discussion that merits recognition as its own field; or in other words, it is greater than the sum of its parts. At the least, it appears to be the first to integrate otherwise-distinct fields in this one area.

Another source of the controversy about nanotechnology's ontological status comes from various opinions on when the field was first created. Many point to Richard Feynman in 1959 as the founding father of nanotechnology; others to Norio Taniguchi in 1974; and still others to K. Eric Drexler in 1986. But, as the following quote from physicist Richard A. L. Jones shows, a growing sentiment in the field points to a much more recent, and unlikely, person:

“Perhaps a better candidate to be considered nanotechnology's father figure is President Clinton, whose support of the USA's National Nanotechnology Initiative converted overnight many industrious physicists, chemists and materials scientists into nanotechnologists. In this cynical (though popular) view, the idea of nanotechnology did not emerge naturally from its parent disciplines, but was imposed on the scientific community from outside.”[11]

3. Is nanoethics its own discipline?

The preceding quote suggests that nanotechnology is a political construct or a marketing buzzword invented to resuscitate old disciplines that appear to be losing ground, particularly in the U.S. where the decline of science graduates has been well documented. But no matter what the answer is here, we can already now understand some of the controversy surrounding whether nanoethics is a field in its own right: if nanotechnology is just a fancy term for a range of other fields, then ethical and social questions arising from nanotechnology would seem to be the same kind of questions already raised in these other fields.

Indeed, one critic, professor Soren Holm, asks:

“It is difficult to specify exactly what could make an area of technology so special that it needs its own ethics, but a minimal requirement must be that it either raises ethical issues that are not raised by other kinds of technologies, or that it raises ethical issues of a different (i.e., larger) magnitude than other technologies. Is this the case for nanotechnology?”[12]

Philip Ball, science writer for Nature, elaborates on this point:

“Questions about safety, equity, military involvement and openness are ones that pertain to many other areas of science and technology [and not just nanotechnology]. It would be a grave and possibly dangerous distortion if nanotechnology were to come to be seen as a discipline that raises unprecedented ethical and moral issues. In this respect, I think it genuinely does differ from some aspects of biotechnological research, which broach entirely new moral questions.”[13]

These are fair and forgivable concerns, and current research in nanoethics might even support this position. For instance, in shrinking down devices, nanotechnology is expected to create a new class of surveillance devices that are virtually invisible and undetectable, thereby raising privacy questions; however, these questions do not appear to be new – some skeptics would claim – but simply an extension of the current debate about privacy. Nanotechnology is also predicted to play a critical role in developing human-enhancing technologies, such as cybernetic body parts or an exoskeleton that gives us superhuman strength or infrared vision; however, society has already been discussing the ethics of such technologies with respect to biotechnology and cognitive sciences. In the more distant future, some people envision nanotechnology's role in extending the human lifespan to the point of near-immortality; but the question of whether we want or should live longer, or forever – as well as its political, economic and social impacts – does not seem dependent on nanotechnology per se.

On the other hand, some issues are emerging that appear unique to nanotechnology, namely the new environmental, health and safety (EHS) risks arising nanomaterials. For instance, research studies suggest that some nanoparticles are directly harmful to animals, and because they can be taken up by cells, they might enter our food chain to unknown effects on human health.[14] Other research asks whether carbon nanotubes will be the next asbestos, since both have the same whisker-like shape that makes it so difficult to purge from our lungs if inhaled.[15] And the flip side of creating super-strong materials such as carbon nanotubes is their fate at the end of a product life-cycle: will these materials persist indefinitely in our landfills, as is the case with Styrofoam or nuclear waste?[16]

One new ethical issue is perhaps not enough to confirm nanoethics as a field in its own right. And in fact, we could perhaps reduce even this apparently-unique issue to belong to another discipline, such as engineering or environmental ethics that questions the wisdom of creating products that do not decompose. But there are other good reasons for believing nanoethics to be a distinct field, especially if we believe that nanotechnology itself is a distinct field.

First, nanoethics also commands a significant amount of attention and money, though far less than the amount poured into nanotechnology. In the U.S., the NNI currently sets aside approximately $43 million for the “identification and quantification of the broad implications of nanotechnology for society, including social, economic, workforce, educational, ethical, and legal implications.”[17] So it would certainly be strange that there would be so much invested by various government agencies, universities, publishers and other organizations globally, if nanoethics were not a distinct or intelligible field. Of course, there is a possibility that all these organizations and scholars have been fooled because nanotechnology and its ethics allegedly do not exist, but that appears more unlikely than correctly identifying nanotechnology as a meaningful area of its own.

Second, it is unclear why we should accept the litmus test that, to be a true discipline, nanoethics must either raise new ethical issues or larger ethical issues than other technologies. Looking again at chemistry, for example, whether or not we can properly categorize it as a subset of physics, there is no existential dilemma about its status as a legitimate category; no one is proposing to do away with the name or reorganize the university chemistry lab under the physics department. Therefore, it is unclear why such a dilemma would exist with nanoethics, even if nanoethics can be wholly contained within another field or set of fields.

Third, to the extent that nanotechnology is a convergence of many disciplines in the first place, it should be no surprise that nanoethics is a convergence of many ethical areas as well. So even if a new area of ethics requires raising new or larger issues, that standard may no longer apply with the discovery or creation of nanotechnology, which uniquely draws from other disciplines like no other discipline before it.

Rather than an argument that nanotechnology is not a real discipline because it does not truly break new ground, nanotechnology seems to represent a new height in our understanding about the world. We are finally able to integrate our learning from a wide range of fields to create profoundly useful applications, which happen to belong to the category of nanotechnology. So just as, for example, architecture can be regarded as a convergence of aesthetic design and engineering, so too can nanotechnology and nanoethics be considered a “real” discipline even if it is a convergence of other fields. Again, the whole of nanotechnology is arguably greater than the sum of its parts, because of the new synergies or interplay between the various parts.

Fourth, nanoethics does seem to raise new ethical issues insofar as it adds a new dimension or “flavor” to current ethical debates. For instance, though privacy may be a relatively old debate, the possibility of creating near-invisible and undetectable devices did not meaningfully exist prior to nanotechnology; so nanotechnology brings a new urgency and reality to the issue of privacy. Further, nanotechnology may help shift the privacy debate in an entirely new direction: whereas worries about unauthorized or unwanted surveillance have traditionally focused on a few agencies, notably governmental organizations, the possibility of cheap, ubiquitous tracking devices – emerging now with radio frequency identity chip (RFID) technology, as one paper in this symposium will discuss, and later to a greater extent with nanotechnology – “decentralizes” surveillance and changes the terms of the debate.

Nanotechnology likewise is putting a new spotlight and elevating other ethical issues, such as related to human enhancement or longevity. Even something as apparently tangential as the ethics of space exploration and settlements – or space ethics – now overlaps with nanoethics, because only with nanotechnology does the possibility of extended space flights and terraforming (i.e., the ability to create a hospitable atmosphere and environment on another planet or moon) become plausible.

4. Issues in nanoethics

If nanoethics is its own discipline, then what are its issues? Again, controversy surrounds even this question. If we are conservative and only acknowledge those issues that will likely or possibly arise from current lines of research in nanotechnology – which is primarily focused on the discovery and applications of new nanomaterials – then nanoethics certainly covers some of the issues mentioned above: EHS impacts, privacy, human enhancement as well as global security (since the military is a major driver of nanotechnology research to such a degree that some fear a new arms race).[18] Other relevant issues may include research ethics (if some research seems to dangerous to publish or pursue, e.g., splitting the atom, human cloning, or replicating viruses capable of pandemics), intellectual property (if today's patent-grab and processes stifle innovation), and humanitarianism (why we are not doing more to solve poverty, hunger, energy, clean water and other problems through nanotechnology).

But more imaginative people, such as Drexler, postulate a more advanced form of nanotechnology in our future – sometimes called molecular manufacturing – by which we can position individual molecules with exact precision. The difference between how we create nanomaterials today (e.g., carbon nanotubes) with precisely-positioned molecules, and molecular manufacturing is the difference between engineering and chemistry. Carbon nanotubes rely on bulk chemical processes and reactions at high temperatures to create the desired configuration of carbon atoms, which is similar in principle to the usual chemistry experiments in which various elements and compounds are thrown together in bulk and shaken up to predictably create a batch of new compounds.[19] In contrast, molecular manufacturing is envisioned to be more like a construction job, grabbing single atoms and deliberately attaching them to others to form the desired structure. This high degree of precision, without messy chemical reactions, would in theory enable us to create practically any possible object.

This line of thought is instantiated by a detailed speculative design for a “nanofactory” that might be a portable or desktop device – a black box of sorts – that can create virtually any object we want, from cakes to computers. To oversimplify things, raw materials, say dirt and water, might go in one end, and a raw steak or perhaps an unmanned fighter jet might come out the other. While this may sound like science fiction, the theory behind it seems sound: if we can precisely manipulate molecules, and physical objects are only made up of molecules, then why wouldn't we be able create any physical object we want?

If this still sounds far-fetched, consider the similarities with today's 3-D printers that can print out plastic or ceramic objects one thin layer at a time. No longer limited to producing only manufacturing prototypes and machine parts, 3-D printers recently broke new ground in printing out fully functional and fashionable footwear, among an expanding and impressive array of print-on-demand products.[20] The nanofactory operates by the same concept, except with much more precision and a mix of different materials.

So if advance nanotechnology is in our possible future, then it raises truly unique and serious questions – and following the litmus test considered earlier, it may strongly support nanoethics as a distinct discipline. Molecular manufacturing appears to have the potential to wreak havoc on our economic system where millions might lose their jobs overnight in the manufacturing and other industries and perhaps eliminating the need for global trade. If people and terrorists can easily create weapons with personal nanofactories, that may threaten global security and the lives of millions or billions of others. Some of the more fantastic issues are also related to advanced forms of nanotechnology, if not directly to molecular manufacturing, such as longevity or immortality, space settlements and artificial intelligence.

However, because these issues are tied to advanced forms of nanotechnology – the plausibility or likelihood of which is in question with mainstream scientists – critics may believe that it is inappropriate or well premature to consider such issues now. But we do not need to resolve that question here in order to take seriously the ethical and social issues advanced nanotechnology might raise. Even if advanced nanotechnology is a remote possibility, its scenarios appear so disruptive that they merit consideration. A simple cost-benefit analysis might justify spending $5 million over the next decade to study and perhaps mitigate a scenario that has a 1% possibility of causing $1 billion of economic disruption, which has an expected negative utility or value of $10 million. (These figures are purely hypothetical but appear to be in a plausible range.)

As an analogy, if decoding the human genome had just a small likelihood of, say, leading to employment or insurance discrimination based on a person's genetic makeup, we would still expect that scenario to be important enough to warrant an investigation. Or more abstractly, if a political course had even a bare possibility to leading to a devastating war, costing the lives of millions, it seems that we are morally obligated to seriously consider that possibility, no matter how remote.

With nanotechnology, so much is still unknown that scientists are really not in a position to accurately forecast what is likely or not and by when. Some believe molecular manufacturing is inevitable; others disagree. But if history is any guide, most of our mid- and long-terms predictions about technology have been proven overly optimistic or pessimistic (e.g., flying cars, robotic maids and the end of privacy). Many things we have today were once believed to be impossible or impractical – such as gas streetlights, residential electricity, telephones, highways, radio, airplanes, rockets and even today's ubiquitous personal computer – so perhaps the prudent course is to treat most of these possibilities as reasonable until proven otherwise.

Even near-term challenges in technology – such as how to shrink the smallest computer processor even further – seem difficult if not intractable to us right now, but somehow we find a way to sustain Moore's Law, which posits a doubling of processing power every 18 months and which some predict will soon fail to hold.[21] Technology is moving rapidly indeed and may be limited now only by our imagination, so it is not implausible to think any technical challenges associated with molecular manufacturing might be eventually solved.

Indeed, in just the last few months, scientists have announced creating a blueprint for an “invisibility cloak” – essentially a heavy blanket created with nanomaterials that can bend, instead of reflect or diffuse, light and other electromagnetic waves around the object cloaked, just as water might flow around a rock in the middle of a stream.[22] (This, too, seems to give rise to ethical issues associated only with nanotechnology, namely privacy and security, if we are still interested in identifying unique issues.) But as recently as early 2006, such innovations would have been thought as merely science fiction, consigned to fantasy worlds such as Harry Potter's. Again, throughout history and even now, ideas that have been dismissed as unworkable somehow become reality, despite their technical challenges, so it is not irrational to treat molecular manufacturing as a real possibility absent compelling evidence to the contrary.

Furthermore, no matter how speculative some of these scenarios seem to be, they provide a useful platform to test our moral principles as at least “thought experiments”, which is a common, accepted and invaluable practice in ethics. For instance, no one thinks that anyone would plausibly be kidnapped and surgically connected to a famous violinist – the premature detachment of whom would lead to the violinist's death – but this hypothetical example isolates and tests out intuitions in Judith Jarvis Thomson's discussion about the moral permissibility of abortion.[23]

Also, few actually question the wisdom of sending spiders into outer space on the grounds that spiders do not exist and may never exist in space (unless we introduce them into space); yet this is useful to study the relationship between gravity and a spider's ability to orient itself and spin webs by isolating gravity as a variable. As it applies to nanotechnology, even if cybernetic people never exist, the possibility of human enhancement provides a platform to explore intuitions related to human dignity, personal identity and other concepts.

Given all this controversy, it should also be no surprise that the questions in nanoethics seem ill-defined as compared to, say, ethical questions in decoding the human genome, as some critics have pointed out.[24] Nanotechnology itself is fractured into different approaches or philosophies, each of which raises it own questions; so, until there is a consensus on what nanotechnology is and will be, it will be difficult to gain a consensus on a plausible set of issues for nanoethics. Moreover, the overlap of nanotechnology with other disciplines – and the overlap of nanoethics with bioethics and other areas – contributes to this challenge.

5. Nanoethics: A Symposium

That said, it is still important to look at both near-term and speculative issues in nanoethics, for reasons previously stated. In this special volume of International Journal of Applied Philosophy, we will present papers on some of the most exciting ethical debates emerging from developments in nanotechnology.

First, a core concept in the current controversy about nanotechnology's EHS risks, as well as other debates, is the so-called “precautionary principle.” This principle advises that we err on the side of caution and proceed slowly if an action might plausibly lead to devastating consequences – as many see in at least some applications of nanotechnology. Yet there is disagreement on how strong this principle is and whether it even makes sense or is reasonable. Our first paper, “The Precautionary Principle in Nanotechnology” by John Weckert and James Moor, defends this principle from key criticisms.

Relatedly, some organizations are calling for increased regulations and even a moratorium on nanotechnology research, as a way to mitigate EHS risks or to buy more time until we can sufficiently address those risks. This debate underscores the lack of specific regulations to govern nanotechnology beyond existing laws that were not designed with nanotechnology in mind. Our second paper, “Introducing Standards of Care in the Commercialization of Nanotechnology” by Vivian Weil, offers a framework for nanotechnology researchers and stakeholders to proceed responsibly.

Beyond EHS concerns in nanotechnology, one of the more pressing and near-term issues in nanoethics will be centered on privacy. One of the immediate impacts nanotechnology can make is to miniaturize devices through the use of smaller electronic components, for example. But this feature feeds worries that nanotechnology, as other new technologies are now also doing, will create surveillance and eavesdropping systems that will be even more difficult to detect. Our third paper, “Nanotechnology and Privacy: the Instructive Case of RFID” by Jeroen van den Hoven, draws lessons from today's radio frequency identity chips (RFID) – an emerging technology that promises to make businesses more efficient and productive, but also holds serious privacy implications – to help guide our thinking about a similar class of devices that nanotechnology is predicted to create in the near future.

As a mid-term issue, nanotechnology is expected to play a crucial role in human enhancement, or the augmenting of human capabilities – such as strength, sight, hearing, memory and longevity – through technology. While some embrace the notion of becoming more than human or see technology as a way to realize our full potential as humans, others fear that possibility will turn us less than human or pervert the notion of human dignity. Our fourth paper, “Altering the Body: Nanotechnology and Human Nature” by Robin Zebrowski, criticizes a central belief held by opponents of human enhancement that there is some “standard body” from which we should not diverge.

And at a more distant point in our future, nanotechnology is expected to accelerate work in artificial intelligence, with innovations such as increased processing speed, increased memory, quantum computing and more. Our fifth and final paper, “Nano-Enabled AI: Some Philosophical Issues” by J. Storrs Hall, discusses the possibility of intentionality in formal systems as well as machines as moral agents.

Again, some of these sound like familiar issues, but in the context of nanotechnology, we now have an expanded and increasingly-plausible platform to discuss these matters. For instance, with nanotechnology, the possibility of “intelligent” machines now seems less fantastic and more real, making our thinking about its implications less frivolous and more relevant to the real world.

These papers also certainly do not address every relevant issue in, say, privacy or human enhancement, but they give a sense of the depth and diversity of ethical and social issues in nanotechnology. Other issues in nanoethics include such areas as research ethics, environment, nanomedicine, intellectual property laws, global equity, economics, politics, national security, education, life extension and space exploration.[25]

Finally, these papers in this volume do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of the editors or publisher, but only of their authors, whom we thank for their contribution. We also would like to thank editor-in-chief Elliot Cohen for proposing this symposium and inviting us to edit the collection, one of the first of its kind. As nanoethics gains momentum, we hope to see more industry experts, academics and the broader public engaged in this critical field – helping to guide science and humanity to a better future.

ABOUT US

The Nanoethics Group is a non-partisan and independent research organization formed to study nanotechnology's impact on society and related ethical issues. As professional ethicists, we help to identify and evaluate possible harms and conflicts as well as to bring balance and common sense to the debate. Our mission is to educate and advise both organizations and the broader public on these issues as a foundation to guide policy and responsible research. For more information, please visit www.nanoethics.org.

REFERENCES

[1] Michael Crichton, Prey, New York: HarperCollins, 2002.

[2] “National Nanotechnology Initiative: Leading to the Next Industrial Revolution”, a report published by US National Science and Technology Council's Committee on Technology, February 2000.

[3] Adam Keiper, “The Nanotechnology Revolution”, The New Atlantis, Summer 2003, issue 2: 19.

[4] Robert A. Freitas, Jr. “Nanomedicine”, The Scientific Conquest of Death: Essays on Infinite Lifespans, Sebastian Sethe (ed.), pp. 77-92, Buenos Aires: Libros En Red, 2004.

[5] K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, pp. 14, 58-63, New York: Anchor Books, 1986.

[6] Kathie O'Donnell, “Procter & Gamble Eyes Nanotech”, MarketWatch, January 25, 2006.

[7] Kyle James, “BASF Sets Aside $221 million for Nano R&D, Opens Asian Center”, Small Times, March 20, 2006.

[8] “Nanomix and UC Berkeley Announce E-Nose Detection Collaboration”, a press release issued by Nanomix, Inc., March 16, 2006.

[9] Ki-Hun Jeong, Jaeyoun Kim and Luke P. Lee, “Biologically Inspired Artificial Compound Eyes”, Science, April 28, 2006, vol. 312, no. 5773: 557-561.

[10] Vivek Maheshwari and Ravi F. Saraf, “High-Resolution Thin-Film Device to Sense Texture by Touch”, Science, June 9, 2006, vol. 312, no. 5779: 1501-4.

[11] Richard A.L. Jones, “Hollow Centre”, Nature, April 20, 2006, vol. 440, issue 7087: 995.

[12] Soren Holm, “Does Nanotechnology Require a New ‘Nanoethics'?”, a paper published by Cardiff Centre for Ethics, Law & Society, August 2005.

[13] Philip Ball, “2003: Nanotechnology in the Firing Line”, Nanotechweb.org, December 23, 2003.

[14] B. Devika Chithrani, Arezou A. Ghazani, and Warren C. W. Chan, “Determining the Size and Shape Dependence of Gold Nanoparticle Uptake into Mammalian Cells”, Nano Letters, March 2006, vol. 6, issue 4: 662-8.

[15] Yury Gogotsi, “How Safe are Nanotubes and Other Nanofilaments?”, Material Research Innovations, August 2003, vol. 7, issue 4: 192-194.

[16] Vicki Colvin and Mark Wiesner, “Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology: Progress in Developing Fundamental Science as a Basis for Assessment”, a keynote presentation delivered at the US EPA's “Nanotechnology and the Environment: Applications and Implications STAR Review Progress Workshop” in Arlington, Virginia, August 28, 2002.

[17] U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative website, accessed on June 6, 2006: http://www.nano.gov/html/society/home_society.html.

[18] Maryann Lawlor, “Small Matters”, Signal Magazine/AFCEA, July 2005, p. 47.

[19] Other methods also exist to create carbon nanotubes, e.g., using high-pressure gas or electricity or lasers, but they do not change the point here that existing methods are radically different and less precise than molecular manufacturing.

[20] “On the Job: 3D Printing Gives Footwear Company a Leg Up on Competition”, a paper published by Engineering & Manufacturing Services, Inc., February 10, 2006.

[21] Victor Zhirnov, Ralph Cavin, James Hutchby and George Bourianoff, “Limits to Binary Logic Switch Scaling – A Gedanken Model”, Proceedings of the IEEE, November 2003, vol. 91, no. 11: 1934-9.

[22] J. B. Pendry, D. Schurig and D. R. Smith, “Controlling Electromagnetic Fields”, Science Express, May 25, 2006, Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1125907.

[23] Judith Jarvis Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1971 vol. 1, no. 1: 47-66.

[24] Richard Harris, “Nanotechnology: More Than Just a Buzzword?”, a presentation delivered at University of California, Santa Barbara, Center for Nanotechnology and Society, May 4, 2006.

[25] For more about nanoethics and these issues, please see: Fritz Allhoff, Patrick Lin, James Moor, John Weckert (eds)., Nanotechnology: A Maelstrom of Ethical and Social Issues (forthcoming, Wiley).

Emerging Uses of Nanotechnology in the Energy Industry

AIE — 2007-01-31T22:14:35Z

Nanotechnology is an emerging set of platform technologies which has potential to change many of our current industries, including energy. Nanotechnology is attracting significant public and private funding from all nations, particularly the United States, and many companies and industries are starting to look to the field to generate competitive advantages.

Three speakers presented different aspects of nanotechnology applications in the energy sector : Dr Peter Binks, CEO of Nanotechnology Victoria, Dr Rachel A Caruso, ARC Australian Research Fellow, School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne, and Dr Paul A Webley, Reader, Chemical Engineering Department, Monash University.

Dr Binks provided an overview under the title, “Nanotechnology and the role it may play in future energy programs”, Dr Caruso spoke on “Controlling structures on the nano-scale with application in photovoltaics”, and Dr Webley on “Design and development of carbon adsorbents for hydrogen storage”. This is a summary of their presentations.

NANOTECHNOLOGY IN ENERGY (Dr Binks)

Nano-science is the study of materials and events at 10-9 m. It is engineering at the molecular level. Nanotechnology is not an industry, nor will it produce new industries. However it provides new competitive dimensions to existing industries and activities, particularly energy. International energy initiatives based on nanotechnology may have implications for Australian programs.

Nano-scale particles have fundamentally different optical and reactive properties to larger particles. Recently identified nano-structures such as carbon nano-tubes have fundamentally different mechanical and electrical properties :
diameter around 1 nanometre ; length typically up to 50 microns
density two times lighter than aluminium
tensile strength 100 times that of steel
electrical conductivity superior to copper
thermal conductivity superior to diamond
biocompatible.

Nano-scale particles provide a different proposition in biological systems to larger particles. Further, nanotechnology allows morphological control, dimensional control and interfacial control.

In 2004, governments, corporations and venture capitalists spent more than US$8.6 billion worldwide, and national and local governments across the world invested more than US$4.6 billion, on nanotechnology R&D. This is the last year that governments will outspend corporations on nanotechnology activity as the focus shifts from basic research to applications development. Approximately 1,500 companies worldwide have announced nanotechnology R&D plans. Eighty percent of them are start-ups, 670 of which are in the United States. A key driver is energy independence.

In the United States, activities related to energy include (key agencies in brackets) :

Energetic materials for propulsion, explosives (DOD)
Catalysis, fuel cells, hydrogen (DOE)
Advanced power systems (IA)
Energy conversion and storage for space (NASA)
Materials science and engineering (NSF)
Manufacturing processes and equipment (NIST)
Biomass conversion, hydrogen production, distributed power (USDA)

American nanotechnology companies are working on catalysts and photovoltaics. Nano-stellar is developing highly-efficient platinum nano-composite catalysts for automobile emission control, fuel cells and chemical industry applications. The next-generation technology will finally make solar power competitive. The new photovoltaics use tiny solar cells embedded in thin sheets of plastic to create an energy-producing material that is cheap, efficient, and versatile. Massachusetts-based Konarka expects to deliver its first commercial solar cells designed for use with consumer electronics like laptops, by the end of 2004.

Figure 1 : Nanotechnology Australia : Capabilities & Commercial Potential (Invest Australia, Feb 2004)

In Australia, Sustainable Technologies International achieved the first commercial installation of dye-sensitised solar panels. The high efficiency was achieved via nano-sized powders used in the electrodes of the panel. The powders are lightly sintered to form a nano-network which is used as the charge collector. Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited is exploring nanotechnology in solid oxide fuel cells for application in the anode, cathode and electrolyte materials. This allows increased manufacturing control and higher surface areas that would enable higher power production.

There are opportunities to capture the benefits of nanotechnology in Australian energy through :

Reduced reliance on fossil fuels and increased use of renewables, in particular solar energy and hydrogen
Development of solutions tailored to Australia, e.g. distributed energy storage and production
Growth of companies to manufacture components, catalysts and cells, based on new technologies
Integration with specialist manufacturing industries, in particular medical and automotive.

PHOTOVOLTAICS (Dr Caruso)

Energy is an essential element for our livelihood and for the advancement of humankind. The majority of our energy is derived from fossil fuels, which we know to be a finite resource that has had a devastating effect on our environment. For some time now there has been a quest for cheap, reliable alternative energy sources which are sustainable. Renewable energy sources include wind turbines, hydropower, and solar power. This presentation focusses on photovoltaics, where light is used to produce electrical power.

The Solar Photovoltaic Roadmap (www.bcse.org.au), which was released in August 2004, demonstrates the potential Australia has to be a main player in the global arena of solar energy, due to Australia's current standing in research, manufacture, marketing and development. If we were to cover an area about one-tenth the size of Australia with solar cells functioning at 10% efficiency, we could supply all of the world's current energy requirements (electrical, transport and heating, see www.electrosolar.co.uk for calculations).

A number of “generations” of photovoltaic cells exist operating with different technologies and coming with varying degrees of efficiency and cost. Third generation cells have just started to enter the market and it is one of these, the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) that relies on nanotechnology. The first manufacturing facility for the DSSC was Sustainable Technologies International in New South Wales which made these cells commercially available in 2003 (www.sta.com.au).

The DSSC originates from Professor Michael Grätzel's laboratories at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (A low-cost, high efficiency solar cell based on dye-sensitized colloidal TiO2 films B. O'Regan and M. Grätzel Nature 353, 737-740 (1991)). The working mechanism is based on the principle of photosynthesis – where energy is provided to the plant by the absorption of light by the chlorophyll in a plant leaf converting CO2 and water to carbohydrates and oxygen. However, covering a large crystal of titanium dioxide with a layer of chlorophyll does not give efficient energy conversion. By decreasing the titanium dioxide crystal size to the nano-regime, a substantial increase in surface area is obtained giving a great increase in photovoltaic efficiency. The DSSC works as follows :

1) Light shining on the cell causes photo-excitation of the dye
2) The electron from the dye is injected into the TiO2
3) The electron flows through the porous TiO2 and along the conducting layer
4) Energy is harnessed from the electron flow
5) Electrons reduce the tri-iodide to iodide
6) Iodide undergoes oxidation at the dye, replacing the electron injected into the TiO2, thereby completing the cycle.

Figure 2 : The dye-sensitized solar cell, after Michael Grätzel.

Nanotechnology can be applied to this cell design in an attempt to further enhance the efficiency of the cell. Firstly, nano-scale control of the morphology could increase the surface area further, resulting in increased dye adsorption, hence light absorption, and therefore more electron flow. Research is being conducted using a templating technique where a mould is utilized to structure the titanium dioxide that affords control of the porosity and final surface area of titanium dioxide. Secondly, nano-scale control of composition can change the crystal size of the TiO2 (again influencing the surface area) and decrease back flow of electrons that result in decreased efficiency. Again, templating techniques allow post-treatment steps to layer a second metal oxide on the titanium dioxide which can act as a barrier preventing back flow of the electrons. This work is being conducted in conjunction with the Nano-crystalline Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Group at Monash University.

HYDROGEN STORAGE (Dr Webley) Acknowledgements : PhD students Louis Chen and Yunxia Yang, post-doctoral student Ranjeet Singh, Chemical Engineering technical staff for analytical assistance, and School of Physics and Materials Engineering for microscopy.

Mobile applications of hydrogen rely on safe, reliable and cost-effective storage. A car would need six to eight kilograms of hydrogen for an internal combustion engine, or four kilograms for a fuel cell engine, to achieve a range of 400 kilometres. The United States Department of Energy has now prepared specifications for such a vessel. There are essentially three ways of meeting this specification : physical storage via compression or liquefaction, use of metal hydrides, and gas-to-solid physi-sorption.

A typical 200 bar steel tank would need some 500 litres volume for eight kilograms. Industry has also developed high-strength composite vessels. However, this method incurs a high energy demand for compression and there are potential safety issues. Liquid hydrogen can be stored in cryogenic tanks as 21.2 K and ambient pressure. Boil-off rates vary with size but are typically 1.5mass% per day. Liquefaction requires roughly half the energy produced in combustion.

Metal hydrides are formed when atomic hydrogen is chemically bonded to a solid and released by heat. The hydrogen is dissociated at the surface and forms a solid solution and hydride phase. Mg2NiH2 and LaNi5H6 alloys look very promising. However, elevated temperatures are required to release hydrogen. The United States Department of Transport has approved the Texaco Ovonic model hydride system for transport, but it takes some 20 minutes to reach 90% capacity.

Carbon-based absorbents are well known as one of the better absorbent groups for their ability to exist in a very fine powdered form with a highly porous structure, ranging in pore size from A to microns. The surface chemistry is readily modified to produce a range of intermolecular forces, and they are cheap ! There are several forms of carbon suitable for physi-sorption : graphite, activated carbons, nano-structured carbons (nano-tubes, films, rods, horns, etc.) and fullerenes. This is the most active area for research and, in 2003, some 65 Japanese patents and 75 US patents were filed for carbon structures designed for hydrogen storage. Activated carbons are made from a variety of sources : coal, biomass, polymers, etc. The overlap of the force fields from opposite pore walls leads to strong adsorption. However, it is difficult to control pore structures and pore size distribution due to its intrinsic disorder characteristics.

Carbon nano-tubes were first discovered in 1991. There are two types of nano-tube : single-walled (SWNT) and multi-walled (MWNT).

Figure 3 : SWNT, 50-60nm diameter (X.Chen et al, Int.J.Hydrogen Energy,2004)

Figure 4 : Multi-walled carbon nano-tube microstructure

SWNT perform better then MWNT in adsorption. However, adsorption results are scattered and inconsistent because it is difficult to produce nano-tubes in high quality and quantity. Impurities such as other forms of carbon obscure the results, and adsorption experiments are difficult to perform correctly. Further progress will only be made with production of nano-tubes of high quality and quantity with standardised procedures. Graphite nano-fibres are produced by catalysed decomposition of carbon-containing compounds. They consist of graphitic platelets of mean diameter between 30 and 500Å which are arranged in either parallel, perpendicular or at an angle to the fibre axis. Hydrogen can “intercalate” within the graphite sheets.

Fullerenes are a new form of carbon with a closed-caged of pentagon and hexagon molecular structure. A high energy barrier prevents it from practical use for hydrogen adsorption. The adsorption results of various research groups are shown in Table 1.

Figure 5 : Graphite nano-fibres

Table 1 : Adsorption results of various research groups

Source : Darkrim, Malbrunot et al, 2002.

The question which needs to be addressed is whether one can engineer adsorbents with required surface area, chemistry, and pore sizes. Hydrogen diameter is 0.41 nm. In micro-pores with diameter 0.8 nm, two hydrogen molecules can fit with overlapping potential fields from walls. C-H Van der Waals forces are relatively weak. It needs some 19 KJ/mol to store hydrogen at room temperature.

Zeolites, commonly used for catalysis and gas separation, are micro-porous crystalline solids with well-defined Si/Al pore structures. The Adsorption Research Group at Monash University in the Chemical Engineering Department uses templating techniques, first forming the 1 ?m zeolite powder into pellets. The next step is to polymerise and pyrolise small monomers in the zeolite supercage to link the supercages in a carbon network, and then remove the template by leaching. Surface treatment of the resulting carbon network will further produce nano-pores. Surface doping of carbon can improve surface chemistry.

The synthesis has a number of advantages : it is reproducible, the pore structure is closely controllable, it is relatively cheap, the control of the pore structure is possible through the use of different templates and/or processing conditions, and post-processing to modify the surface can significantly alter properties. Further experimental design is required to optimise pore size and regulate post-synthesis activities to create ultra-micropore in the carbon framework, with post-syntheses doping of the surface to enhance adsorption energy.

The conclusions to date are that careful control of pores in carbon at the nano-scale is possible and the final material may be a good hydrogen storage material.

Nanotechnology Basics : For Students and Other Learners

CRN — 2007-01-31T22:14:34Z

What is nanotechnology all about?

Nanotechnology is the engineering of tiny machines — the projected ability to build things from the bottom up inside personal nanofactories (PNs), using techniques and tools being developed today to make complete, highly advanced products. Ultimately, nanotechnology will enable control of matter at the nanometer scale, using mechanochemistry. Shortly after this envisioned molecular machinery is created, it will result in a manufacturing revolution, probably causing severe disruption. It also has serious economic, social, environmental, and military implications.

A nanometer is one billionth of a meter, roughly the width of three or four atoms. The average human hair is about 25,000 nanometers wide.

You can see a longer explanation here. And to check out more of those tiny machines, click here.

What's a personal nanofactory?

It's a proposed new appliance, something that might sit on a countertop in your home. To build a personal nanofactory (PN), you need to start with a working fabricator, a nanoscale device that can combine individual molecules into useful shapes. A fabricator could build a very small nanofactory, which then could build another one twice as big, and so on. Within a period of weeks, you have a tabletop model.

Artwork by John Burch, Lizard Fire Studios (3D Animation, Game Development)

Products made by a PN will be assembled from nanoblocks, which will be fabricated within the nanofactory. Computer aided design (CAD) programs will make it possible to create state-of-the-art products simply by specifying a pattern of predesigned nanoblocks. The question of when we will see a flood of nano-built products boils down to the question of how quickly the first fabricator can be designed and built.

MOVIE TIME: A short film called Productive Nanosystems: from Molecules to Superproducts depicts an animated view of a nanofactory and demonstrates key steps in the sample process that converts basic molecules into a billion-CPU laptop computer. The 4-minute streaming video is online here.

What could nanofactories produce?

	- Lifesaving medical robots or untraceable weapons of mass destruction.
	- Networked computers for everyone in the world or networked cameras so governments can watch our every move.
	- Trillions of dollars of abundance or a vicious scramble to own everything.
	- Rapid invention of wondrous products or weapons development fast enough to destabilize any arms race.

How does 'mechanochemistry' work?

It's a bit like enzymes (if you know your chemistry): you fix onto a molecule or two, then twist or pull or push in a precise way until a chemical reaction happens right where you want it. This happens in a vacuum, so you don't have water molecules bumping around. It's a lot more controllable that way.

So, if you want to add an atom to a surface, you start with that atom bound to a molecule called a "tool tip" at the end of a mechanical manipulator. You move the atom to the point where you want it to end up. You move the atom next to the surface, and make sure that it has a weaker bond to the tool tip than to the surface. When you bring them close enough, the bond will transfer. This is ordinary chemistry: an atom moving from one molecule to another when they come close enough to each other, and when the movement is energetically favorable. What's different about mechanochemistry is that the tool tip molecule can be positioned by direct computer control, so you can do this one reaction at a wide variety of sites on the surface. Just a few reactions give you a lot of flexibility in what you make.

MECHANOSYNTHETIC REACTIONS Based on quantum chemistry by Walch and Merkle [Nanotechnology, 9, 285 (1998)], to deposit carbon, a device moves a vinylidenecarbene along a barrier-free path to bond to a diamond (100) surface dimer, twists 90° to break a pi bond, and then pulls to cleave the remaining sigma bond.

Why do some scientists dismiss this stuff as science fiction?

The whole concept of advanced nanotechnology — molecular manufacturing (MM) — is so complex and unfamiliar, and so staggering in its implications, that a few scientists, engineers, and other pundits have flatly declared it to be impossible. The debate is further confused by science-fictional hype and media misconceptions.

It should be noted that none of those who dismiss MM are experts in the field. They may work in chemistry, biotechnology, or other nanoscale sciences or technologies, but are not sufficiently familiar with MM theory to critique it meaningfully.

Many of the objections, including those of the late Richard Smalley, do not address the actual published proposals for MM. The rest are unfounded and incorrect assertions, contradicted by detailed calculations based on the relevant physical laws.

Is nanotechnology bad or good?

Nanotechnology offers great potential for benefit to humankind, and also brings severe dangers. While it is appropriate to examine carefully the risks and possible toxicity of nanoparticles and other products of nanoscale technology, the greatest hazards are posed by malicious or unwise use of molecular manufacturing. CRN's focus is on designing and promoting mechanisms for safe development and effective administration of MM.

If MM is so dangerous, why not just completely ban all research and development?

Viewed with pessimism, molecular manufacturing could appear far too risky to be allowed to develop to anywhere near its full potential. However, a naive approach to limiting R&D, such as relinquishment, is flawed for at least two reasons. First, it will almost certainly be impossible to prevent the development of MM somewhere in the world. China, Japan, and other Asian nations have thriving nanotechnology programs, and the rapid advance of enabling technologies such as biotechnology, MEMS, and scanning-probe microscopy ensures that R&D efforts will be far easier in the near future than they are today. Second, MM will provide benefits that are simply too good to pass up, including environmental repair; clean, cheap, and efficient manufacturing; medical breakthroughs; immensely powerful computers; and easier access to space.

What about "grey goo"?

The dangers of self-replicating nanobots — the so-called grey goo — have been widely discussed, and it is generally perceived that molecular manufacturing is uncomfortably close to grey goo. However, the proposed production system that CRN supports does not involve free-floating assemblers or nanobots, but much larger factories with all the nanoscale machinery fastened down and inert without external control. As far as we know, a self-replicating mechanochemical nanobot is not excluded by the laws of physics, but such a thing would be extremely difficult to design and build even with a full molecular manufacturing capability. Fiction like Michael Crichton's Prey might be good entertainment, but it's not very good science.

How soon will molecular manufacturing be developed?

Based on our studies, CRN believes that molecular manufacturing could be successfully developed within the next ten years, and almost certainly will be developed within twenty years. For more, see our Timeline page.

Shouldn't we be working on current problems like poverty, pollution, and stopping terrorism, instead of putting money into these far future technologies?

We should do both! Development and application of molecular manufacturing clearly can have a positive impact on solving many of today's most urgent problems. But it's equally clear than MM can exacerbate many of society's ills. Knowing that it may be developed within the next decade or two (which is not "far future"), makes preparation for MM an urgent priority.