Nanotech warning for councils

Nanotech warning for councils

Bay of Plenty councils are being warned nanotechnology is going to have to be considered in any future waste management plan. The warning comes in submissions made on Wednesday on the Tauranga City and Western Bay of Plenty District Councils' joint draft waste management plan.

Jean Anderson, coordinator for physicians and scientists for global responsibility, says the plan as it stands has no reference to disposal of manufactured products using nanotechnology. "These products are already finding their way into retail markets despite there being a paucity of research available on the environmental and human health effects of these nano products," says Jean in submissions.

"A draft policy projecting six years forward should anticipate imminent and inevitable changes to waste quality." Nanotechnology refers to structures, materials and systems that operate at a scale of atoms and molecules, 100 nanometres or less. One nanometre is one billionth of a metre. A virus measures about 100nm.

In her submission Jean says the properties of ordinary materials alter at nano scales. Nano scale aluminium can spontaneously combust, gold, which is normally inert, can bind with human DNA. Nano particles can pass through skin, blood vessels and the blood-brain barrier. Worldwide there are estimated to be 300 food items using nanotechnology in wrapping, processing and ingredients, and it is being proposed for products for domestic agricultural industrial medical and other uses - despite some risks, says Jean.

"Scientists do not know if nano particles persist and accumulate in the environment and what may happen ecologically. "What needs to be looked at is how to handle manufacturing waste as well as ordinary waste coming from homes and shops, and to do this urgently."

Jean says the Ministry of Research Science and Technology is currently also reviewing regulations relevant to nano materials including looking at the Hazardous Substances and new Organisms Act, the Health and Safety in Employment Act, the Waste Minimisation Act and a range of other legislation.

Size effect and vacancies in nanomaterials

Size effect and vacancies in nanomaterials

(Nanowerk Spotlight) At the nanoscale, the properties of materials – mechanical, electrical, thermal, optical – often differ significantly from their bulk behavior. And while nanostructured and nanoengineered products are appearing in the marketplace, researchers are still trying to understand all aspects of materials properties of nanostructures and how they can be modified and controlled.

Vacancies (also called Schottky defect) play a major role in the electrical and thermal transport as well as the mechanical behavior of materials. A vacancy is the simplest defect which can be created in a material – it corresponds to a lack of an atom in the lattice.

New theoretical work by Grégory Guisbiers at the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium calculates the size effect on the vacancy formation energy, the vacancy formation entropy and the vacancy concentration into nanomaterials through a top-down approach by using classical thermodynamics.

Reporting his work in an upcoming paper in Journal of Physical Chemistry C ("Schottky defects in nanoparticles"), Guisbiers' main findings is that the vacancy concentration increases when size reduces and temperature increases. This result is important because it helps to understand how the mechanical, electrical and thermal properties are modified at the nanoscale. The model considers the size effect on the vacancy formation energy and the vacancy formation entropy. The previous model from Qi et al. ("Surface-area-difference model for thermodynamic properties of metallic nanocrystals") only considered the size effect on the vacancy formation energy. Guisbier's model goes one step further.

"To understand the processes occurring in nanomaterials during heat treatment and mechanical deformation, the size effects on the vacancy formation energy and entropy have to be considered," Guisbiers explains to Nanowerk. "The new model explains why nanomaterials appear to be perfect – it is due to the limited number of atoms in a particle (nanoparticles generally have less than one million atoms and according to the theory there are less than 1 vacancy per one million atoms)."

The vacancy concentration of a spherical gold nanoparticle is plotted versus its size and temperature. The vacancy concentration increases dramatically (∼10-3) for small sizes (∼5nm) and high temperatures (T ∼1000K). (Image: Grégory Guisbiers)

This model can also explain how defects like vacancies influence the properties of a material. It allows the calculation of the vacancy concentration, the vacancy formation energy, and the vacancy formation entropy for a nanoparticle.

"Predicting the vacancy concentration in nanostructures is important because it can explain the mechanical, electrical and thermal properties observed in these nanostructures" says Guisbiers. "Indeed, the presence of vacancies in the crystal lattice modifies the lattice structure around the vacancies and then results in a decrease of the lattice parameter and a lattice softening. Furthermore, the hardness and the yield strength of the material typically increase with decreasing size, a phenomenon known as the Hall-Petch effect. The size-dependent hardness enhancement at a temperature well below the melting temperature is due to the bond length contraction and the associated bond strength gain. Increasing vacancy concentration results in a decrease of the electrical and thermal conductivity due to the scattering of electrons on vacancies and the lattice softening."

The next stages in Guisbiers' investigations are to focus on interstitial defects and dislocations. The goal is to see how these defects can influence the nanomaterials properties.

By Michael Berger. Copyright 2011 Nanowerk

Size effect and vacancies in nanomaterials

Europe's largest nanotechnology conference attracts top speakers

(Nanowerk News) Europe's largest annual nanotechnology conference and exhibition, Nanotech Europe takes place in Berlin, Germany's capital city at the heart of Europe. In its fifth year, Nanotech Europe will be held on 28 - 30 September 2009.

Nanotech Europe offers a broad, interdisciplinary overview of nanotechnology, and the opportunity to meet and discuss with the field's top scientists and leading international companies in the nanotechnology community. The conference has a broad scope, covering leading-edge research, industrial applications and cross-cutting topics including: Nanophotonics, Materials, Health & Bio, Safety, Energy, Instrumentation, Functional Surfaces and Investment.

The published conference programme includes many high-quality speakers such as: Herbert Kohler, Vice President Vehicle and Powertrain, Daimler AG (Germany); Christos Tokamanis, Head of Unit "Nano and converging Sciences and Technologies", DG Research, European Commission; Alexander von Preysing, Senior Vice President, Deutsche Börse AG (Germany); Andreas Jordan, Chief Scientific Officer, MagForce Nanotechnologies AG (Germany); Tapani Ryhänen, Head of Strategic Research, Nokia Research Center (Finland); Wang Chen, Director, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (China); Jeffrey A. Hubbell, Professor, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland); Emmanuel Desurvire, Director, Thales Research & Technology (France); Masakazu Aono, Director General, International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (Japan); Andre Moreira, Investment Manager, BASF Venture Capital (Germany).

"We are delighted to have top scientists from several organizations around the world and leaders from international organizations such as Nokia, Shell, Daimler, Carl Zeiss, BASF, Bayer and Magforce speak about opportunities in nanotechnology", comments Maria Sipilä, Event Director from Spinverse.

During the event the Nanotech Europe 2009 Matchmaking will take place on two conference afternoons. The matchmaking service is intended to help companies, research groups and other organisations to find partners for technology development and commercialisation, collaborative research projects and investment and other support.

Furthermore, the conference includes the Lux Research Executive Forum, which focuses on Lux Research's updated forecasts for nanomaterials, intermediates, and nano-enabled products, key nano-enabled product categories decimated by the recession - and those that remain unscathed. Also the new success strategies that incorporate the downturn's repercussions will be discussed. It is organised in partnership with Lux Research.

The programme also includes the European Technology Platform for Micro- and NanoManufacturing (MINAM) Nanofutures workshop.

The Nanotech Europe 2009 exhibition offers an outstanding opportunity to meet the leading international companies, innovative SMEs and research centers that are developing and applying nanotechnology.

The 2009 event is organised by a comprehensive consortium of partners, including Agent-D, the coordination group of the Centers of Competence of Nanotechnology in Germany, Nokia and BioBay, China. It is co-organised with Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) in cooperation with the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Germany). The lead organizer of Nanotech Europe is Spinverse, a company specialized in emerging technology commercialization.

Source: Spinverse

http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=11502.php

EU scientific hearing on risk assessment of nanotechnologies

(Nanowerk News) On 10 September 2009, the European Commission (DG Health and Consumers) is organising in Brussels a Scientific Hearing on the risk assessment of nanotechnologies. Venue: Centre de Conference A. Borschette, Rue Froissart 36, 1040 Brussels.

The main objectives of this Hearing are to identify:

any possible scientific topics which have not been covered in the opinions from the relevant EU Risk Assessment Committees and Bodies;\ what are -according to current scientific knowledge- the main potential risks that could emerge from the use of nanomaterials in the future; and provision of relevant background information and comments on those issues.

Source: European Commission

http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=11516.php

New 3-year study into impact of nanomaterials on aquatic ecosystems

(Nanowerk News) A team of Canadian scientists and engineers, led by the University of Alberta and the National Research Council of Canada, will collaborate on a $3.39 million, three-year study to assess the potential effects of nanoparticles in specific water environments.

"Nanotechnology is a very new and quickly developing field. Governments and regulating agencies around the world are seeking solid scientific data upon which to base their regulatory standards," said Greg Goss, project co-leader and professor of biological sciences, University of Alberta. "This research will allow the nanotechnology industry to proceed with confidence [in the knowledge] that the environmental safety of their products can be properly assessed. In addition, the companies can use the knowledge gained to properly engineer their products with reduced environmental impact."

The research resulting from this study will help regulators understand the interaction of new molecules within our ecosystem, and inform and facilitate the development of sound regulatory policies in this area.The goal is to expedite the safe use of nanotechnology in the future by understanding how to mitigate its impact on the environment.

"NRC brings its extensive expertise in the development of tools and impact assessment methods to the collaboration," said Geoffrey Sunahara, leader of the Applied Ecotoxicology Group at the NRC Biotechnology Research Institute and project co-leader. "This expertise complements the wide-ranging research experience of our academic and private-sector collaborators."

The research team will also develop new testing techniques specifically designed for assessing the impact of new nanomaterials because classic toxicity tests may not be appropriate for some of them. The toxicological data derived from this project will provide an important foundation for a science-based policy on environmental risk assessment of nanoparticles.

The multi-disciplinary team will bring together 19 researchers from the public and private sectors, including leading biologists, chemists, lawyers and engineers from seven universities, three National Research Council institutes, the National Institute for Nanotechnology, Environment Canada, the Government of Alberta, VIVE Nano, Golder Associates and HydroQual Laboratories.

Funding for the project comes from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the National Research Council of Canada, the National Institute for Nanotechnology, Environment Canada and the University of Alberta, and includes in-kind contributions from VIVE Nano, Golder Associates and HydroQual Laboratories.

Source: University of Alberta http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=11512.php