Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Nanotechnology For The Environment
Nanotechnology For The Environment
for the
Environment
Tina Masciangioli
AAAS Environmental Science
and Technology Policy Fellow
National Center for Environmental
Research (NCER)
U.S.EPA
Nanotechnology and
the Environment
“The emerging fields of
nanoscience and
The bad… nanoengineering are leading
Nature of nanoparticles themselves. to unprecedented
understanding and control
Characteristics of the products made. over the fundamental building
Manufacturing processes involved. blocks of all physical things.
This is likely to change the
• As nano-xyz is manufactured, way almost everything - from
what materials are used? vaccines to computers to
automobile tires to objects not
• What waste is produced?
yet imagined - is designed
• Are toxic substances used in the and made.”
manufacturing of nano-xyz? - Interagency Working Group on
Nanoscience, Engineering, and Technology
• What happens when nano-xyz gets Report (1999)
into the air, soil, water, or biota?
Avoiding the Negative
Cadmium sulfide (CdS)
Are there more benign “Quantum dots”
precursor materials or H2S gas
synthetic methods that CdS CdS Enter the
can be used to make the + environment
CdS CdS
quantum dots? Cd(CH3)2
CdS
Will it be possible
Bio/Enviro/other
to recover the applications
quantum dots for
reuse?
•Remediation
•Information
Nanotechnology for
pollution prevention
Synthetic or manufacturing
processes which can occur at
ambient temperature and pressure.
Use of non-toxic catalysts with
minimal production of resultant
pollutants.
Use of aqueous-based reactions. Involved in making a
manufacturing process
Build molecules as needed --“just environmentally benign.
in time.”
An environmentally benign
Nanoscale information technologies material or manufactured
for product identification and product that replaces toxic
tracking to manage recycling, substances or minimizes raw
remanufacture, and end of life materials.
disposal of solvents.
5m
Biomolecular nanolithography
• Biomimetic methods of organizing
metal particles 1.5 nanometers in
diameter.
• Assembling the particles on a
biopolymer template or scaffold
stretched out on a surface.
• Nanostructures are organized into
well-defined chip architectures, such
as lines and grids.
• Process eliminates the current process
chemicals that are harmful to the
environment.
Used for
• Process control, compliance
and ecosystem monitoring, and
data/information interfaces.
Need to be
• Low cost, rapid, precise, and
ultra sensitive.
• Operated remotely and
continuously, in situ, and in
IBM--Berger et al., Science 1997 June 27; 276: 2021-2024
real time.
Conclusions
Science and Engineering approaches are
needed that offer new capabilities to prevent or
treat highly toxic or persistent pollutants, and
that result in the more effective monitoring of
pollutants or their impact in ways not currently
possible.
Nanoscience, engineering, and technology
holds great potential for the continued
improvement of technologies for environmental
protection. The recent breakthroughs in creating
nanocircuitry, give further evidence and support
the predictions that nanoscale science and
engineering “will most likely produce the
breakthroughs of tomorrow.”
BUT the environmental implications (nano
in the environment) need to be considered as we
consider nano for the environment.