Nano world wonders

A.B. Ariyaratne

NANOTECHNOLOGY: Nanotechnology is a “catch - all” description of activities at a vanishingly small scale that have applications in the real world. A nanometre is 1/80,000 of the diameter of a human hair. It is ten times the diameter of a hydrogen atom. It is a billionth of a meter (1/1,000,000,000). The width of a human hair is approximately 100,000 nanometres.

To understand Nanotechnology one has to know what ‘atoms’ and molecules’ are. ATOM... The smallest particle of a chemical element. (Oxford English Dictionary). MOLECULE.... The group of atoms that is the smallest unit into which a substance can be divided without losing its basic nature or identity.

A molecule of water is made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen (Chambers Universal Learners Dictionary). This is what BBC Online Science and Technology staff Jo Twist says: “Myths and realities of nano futures Ever since John Dalton convinced the world of the existence of atoms in 1803, scientists have wanted to do things with them.

Nanotechnology takes that ability on to a new plane and opens up all kinds of futuristic imaginings.

Essentially, nanotech is manipulation at the molecular scale - distances that may cover just a few millionths of a millimetre.

But its potential is not just about being able to miniaturise things. Indeed, scientists and engineers recognize that there are fundamental limits to pure miniaturisation.

Working at a scale a million times smaller than a pinhead allows researchers to “tune” material properties, making them behave in different ways to normal, large-scale solids.

This behaviour can be exploited in quite ground-breaking ways. A lot of work relating to miniaturisation of materials by nanoscience has been done by scientists and engineers. Nanotechnology based consumer products are now available in the markets of developed countries. Products now available in the markets have been identified in multiple categories, as per “nanotechproject” report available in the web.

These figures are as at 26th November, 2006

Category Number of Products

Health and Fitness 229

Home and Garden 39

Electronics and Computers 35

Food and Beverages 29

Multifunctional 28

Automotive 16

Appliances 15

Good for Children 5

When you take Health and Fitness as a main category, three are sub-categories under which products are available (numbers within brackets show the number of products) - Cosmetics (64), Clothing (62), Personal Care (43), Sporting Goods (38). Sunscreen (18), Filtration (15).

There are over 300 products coming from countries in the west as will as the east. These include (numbers in brackets give the number of products). USA (197), East Asia -

China, taiwan, Korea, Japan (78), Europe UK, France, Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Sweden (60), Others - Australia, Mexico, Isreal, New Zealand, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore (19).

Nanotechnology and the South-South Divide

The article titled “Small Things and Big Changes in the Developing World,” by Mohamed Hassan, executive director of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World, is most striking.

Hassan argues that the pace and pattern of nanoscience and nanotech research in the developing world increasingly mirrors that in the North, and that there are good reasons to believe that significant breakthroughs could come from laboratories in the developing world.

As noted, China spends a very large amount of money on nanotech research (perhaps as much as $600 million total between 2003 and 2007), and India, Brazil, South Africa and a variety of other less-developed nations are also funding nanoscience relatively well.

Hasan argues that this reflects both recognition of nanotechnology’s potentially critical role in developmental leapfrogging and an embrace of the larger notion that science is a fundamental engine of development.

At the same time, this could hasten the onset of a “South-South’ divide even greater than the “North-South” divide with which we’re familiar.

First, having closer ties between scientists and technologists in the North and South increases the chances that the research and development agenda will be dictated by the North. Nanoscinece and nanotechnology raise many intriguing questions from a research perspective.

At the same time, they have many potentially valuable societal applications for poor people, including the creation of more efficient filtering systems for producing clean drinking water (through the creation of filters that prevent viruses and toxins from entering the water supply) and the provision of cheap and clean energy (through more efficient solar cells).

But there remains the possibility that the majority of resources and expertise (in the North and South) may be applied to products and services that hold the most promising market potential in the North where the richest consumers live.

Such a South-South divide is an inevitable consequence of a world in which some developing nations adopt leapfrog technologies and practices, and others do not (whether by mistaken choice or by circumstance).

The issue isn’t whether the nano-leap countries will have a developmental improvement compared to the stragglers, but how improvement is applied. That is, do the leapfrog nations work to meet the demands of the developed world consumer market, or do they use these technologies to improve the conditions for those in poverty, both within their own borders and in their region as a whole?

Hassan’s position on this choice is clear:

To avoid this pitfall, governments throughout the developing world must focus on and support national policies that address critical social and environmental concerns in their own countries.

Between 2003 and 2007, China’s central government will invest some US$ 240 million in nanoscience and nanotechnology and the nation’s local governments, by some estimates, will provide US$360 million more. Brazil plans to invest more than US$25 million between 2004 and 2007, and India US$23 million between 2004 and 2009.

Last year, South Africa invested an estimated US$6 million in this endeavour, and Argentina recently announced that it will invest US$10 million over the next 5 years. Chile and Mexico are also pursuing modest by growing programs.

Smaller and poorer developing countries have also decided that this represents a strategic investment in future economic and social well-being that they cannot afford to ignore. Thailand and the Philippines, for example, are both devoting a portion of their small science and technology budgets to nanoscience and nanotechnology.

Specifically, the governments of those developing countries now investing heavily in nanotechnology should avoid “hitching” their research and development programs to those in the North.

To prevent the creation of a South-South nanotechnology divide, such developing countries should devise broad-based strategies that include ample investments in South-South cooperation. In the long term, this could advance the use of these technologies worldwide and spur progress on many of the Millennium Development Goals.

Nanotechnology can and will play a big role in helping to meet the Millennium Development Goals. The question ins’t whether nanoscience will be of value to development, it’s whether it will be applied in a way to benefit the greatest number of people.

Here’s where the free/open source model takes on an even greater role. We’ve noted before that nanotechnology bears a closer resemblance to software development than industrial engineering; as with biotechnology, the free/open source concepts can be readily and successfully applied to work done in the realm of nanoscience.

This does not mean that researchers in the developing world should turn their backs on the undoubtedly huge global market for commercial nano-goods; rather, researchers in both the developed and the leapfrog nations should be willing to contribute to open projects to expand the broader field of knowledge, and to make sure that those technologies of greatest use to people in need (even if not those with the greatest profit potential) are developed and distributed.

The Tropical Disease Initiative can be a model here: an open effort by biomedical specialists, often in the employ of commercial firms, to discover and deploy treatments for the kinds of diseases afflicting those regions least able to pay for cutting-edge pharmaceutical.

As the leapfrog nations join the hyperdeveloped world in the nanotech age, we many well need to see a Developmental Nanotech Initiative as a guarantee that the benefits of this revolutionary technology are distributed as widely as possible. Nano products are now available in the east of for various applications. Some are consumer products. Products for industrial applications are also available.

In the Budget Speech for 2007, it has been mentioned that Nanotechnology will be used for development.

Nanotechnology has been put to commercial use by the joint effort of private corporations and university researchers. In countries like Sri Lanka too this type of collaboration should be promoted.

If successful research work is given publicity investors and venture capitalist will come forward to put such research work into commercial use and thus research could be further encouraged.

To build up interactions with the scientific community and others interested in nanotechnology and its application, we have created a “Discussion Group” in our website. It could be accessed by clicking “Nano Lanka” in our website www.sdbank.net. 

(The writer is General Manager/CEO Sabaragamuwa Development Bank)