Nanocoatings could keep labs clean
cleanliness of laboratory and pharmaceutical workplaces.
Indeed the development of the technology, which involves the study and use of materials at an extremely small scale - at sizes of millionths of a millimetre - is being pushed hard by the need to achieve complete surface cleanliness within a number of sectors.
Nanotechnology has obvious implications for the semiconductor industry, but food technologists also stand to gain from many of the innovations coming through.
"The beauty of nanotechnology is that these applications are interchangeable," said Ottilia Saxl, chief executive of the Institute of Nanotechnology.
"If a nanotech application is applicable in one sector, then it is often applicable in ten. Little start-up nanotech companies often find themselves with an embarrassment of riches, not knowing which sector to target first."
Saxl points out that there is currently a lot of work on nanosensors at the moment, in particular the use of nano-particulates of silver in the purification of water.
"The Romans after all used to put silver coins in their water bags - it seems strange that it has taken us all these years to get back there."
In addition, scientists are working on dirt-repellent coatings at the nanoscale, a concept that could have important applications for the safety of laboratories, clean rooms and food production sites.
"If you drop water onto a lotus leaf, it skites off," said Saxl. "This is because the leaf is coated by tiny wax pyramids, limiting the amount of surface area that a drop can land on. There is no surface area for the drop to stick to."
Saxl says that many companies are looking into applying this lotus effect, with a great deal of research going on at the University of Bonn in Germany. Abattoirs and meat processing plants in addition to laboratories could benefit from such technology.
However, the semiconductor industry perhaps stands to gain most from such innovations. There are already numerous projects designed to achieve complete surface cleanliness. The Surface Cleaning Technology Consortium (SCTC) for example is a multi-client programme funded by commercial companies in computer disk drive and semiconductor manufacturing.
Members of the Consortium include IBM, Fujitsu, Storage Technology Corp, and Kobe Steel. The consortium has sought ways in which to develop nonvolatile residue and fluorescence methods for contamination quantification.
Nanotechnology could offer these companies a key tool with which to discover new methods of achieving surface cleanliness and detecting contamination.
Finally, the antimicrobial sector continues to spill out new materials that can brought into the lab in order to fight contamination. Smith & Nephew for example is marketing an antimicrobial dressing covered with nanocrystalline silver.
The company claims that the nanocrystalline coating of silver rapidly kills a broad spectrum of bacteria in as little as 30 minutes.
