For generations of products and processes: Nano

“… for I was never so small as this before, never!”
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, 1907


FOR GENERATIONS OF PRODUCTS AND PROCESSES

1st passive nanostructures (1st generation products)
a. Dispersed and contact nanstructures Ex: aerosols, colloids
b. Products incorporating nanostructures Ex: coatings; nanoparticle reinforced composites; nanostructured metals, polymers, ceramics


2nd Active nanostructures
a. Bio-active, health effects Ex: targeted drugs, biodevices
b. Physio-chemical active Ex: 3D transistors, amplifiers, actuators. adaptive structures d Active nanostructures

3rd Systems of nanostructures
Ex: guided assembling; 3D networking and new hierarchial architectures, robotics, evolutionary biosystems

4th Molecular nanosystems
Ex: molecular devices ‘by design’, atomic design, emerging functions

A key issue in understanding the system of innovation in nanomaterials is that the great majority of nanomaterials are not consumer products to be sold to an end user, but ‘capital’ materials to be used by other industries in order to make new products. In this sense most nanomaterials can be understood as ‘products for process innovation’. This is why supplier and manufacturing firms occupy the central position in nanoma-terials innovation systems. The innovation system for nanomaterials can therefore be conceptualised as an ‘hourglass model’ (figure 2-VI) in which a variety of scientific disciplines support the development of a number of technologies for the fabrication of nanomaterials, which then serve many different economic sectors.

Novel Materials in the Environment: the case of nanotechnology, Royal Commission on Envir Pollution, Nov 2008