Exploiting the Benefits of Nanotechnology

At SINTEF scientist both exploit the benefits of the nanotechnology and try to discover how tiny particles could behave hazardous in nature.

Andy Booth, SINTEF scientist and environmental chemist is interested in what nanotechnology is doing to the marine environment. A couple of years ago, he began to be interested in whether nanoparticles could be hazardous.

Now, Booth is leading a project called “The environmental fate and effects of SINTEF-produced nanoparticles”. The scientists will study both how the particles behave and how they affect organisms when they are released into the marine environment.

One of the goals of the project is to find out whether nanoparticles are toxic to marine organisms such as small crustaceans and animal plankton. Further down the road, the ability of cod larvae and other large organisms to tolerate nanoparticles will also be studied.

“Our experiments will tell us whether these tiny particles will be excreted or remain inside organisms, and if they do, how they will behave there,” explains Booth, who wants to make it clear that not all nanoparticles are necessarily dangerous. Many types of nanoparticles occur naturally in the environment, and have existed ever since the Earth was formed. For example, ash is a material that contains nanoparticles.

“What is new is that we are now capable of designing nanoparticles with a wide range of different properties. Such particles can be different from those that already occur in nature, and they are intended to perform specific tasks at our command, so we do not know how they will behave in nature. “This could potentially – and I say “potentially” because this topic is so new to science – indicate that these particles could be toxic under certain conditions. However, this depends on a number of factors, including their concentration and the combination of particles,” emphasises Booth.

“Has industry good enough tests to ensure that the nanoproducts that it release in the market are good enough?”

“In the field of chemical analysis, we have standard tests that tell us whether or not a material is toxic. Today, there are no such tests of nanoparticles that are 100% accurate, so this is something that scientists are currently working on at international level,” says Booth, adding that he believes that it is extremely difficult to put products that are a danger to health on the market.

Survey of millions is essential

The nanoparticle concept is general, and includes many more than one type. There are millions of potential variants, Today, it is impossible to obtain an overview of how many there actually are, and some of them will be toxic, while others are harmless, just like other chemicals.

This is why Andy Booth and his 12-strong team at SINTEF have just launched their painstaking efforts. One of the biggest challenges they have faced so far is that of identifying scientific methods that will enable them to discover how these tiny particles behave in nature, and how they might affect natural processes.

Industrial breakthrough

Booth’s colleague Christian Simon and his research department at SINTEF Materials and Chemistry, has recently made the most important industrial breakthrough ever in nanoparticle technology, and in this case it looks as though nanosubstances could be environmentally friendly alternatives to chemicals.

One of Norway’s leading manufacturer of powders and paints, is about to start production of a new type of paint containing nanoparticles, and it has been developed by SINTEF.

The particles possess fluid characteristics that make the paint easy to apply. This means that a higher proportion of dry matter can be used, with correspondingly less solvent. Furthermore, the paint will dry rapidly and be more wear-resistant than normal paint.

“We have already signed licensing agreements for certain applications, and are currently in the upscaling phase. The product will be delivered in the autumn, but there are still a few things to be tested,” says Simon.

“But what happens when materials painted with nanoparticles are demolished, chopped up or burnt? Will hazardous components escape to the environment?

“The particles have been produced in such a way that they create chemical bonds to the other components of the paint. When the paint is fully cured, therefore, the nanoparticles no longer exist, so they cannot separate from the polymer matrix when whatever has been painted is torn down, chopped up or burnt,” answers Christian Simon.

Lab on a chip

“The emerging environmental problems related to nanotechnology are probably due to the size and shape of the particles, rather than to the nature of the materials themselves,” says Liv Furuberg, who works at MiNaLab, the laboratory for microsystems and nanotechnology. The laboratory is squeezed into a building in Gaustadbekkdalen in Oslo, and it is owned by SINTEF and the University of Oslo.

Several of SINTEF’s research groups are collaborating on the task of shrinking the large analytical laboratories that we are familiar with from hospitals down to miniature versions the size of a credit card.

The tiny diagnostic system can automatically perform advanced analyses of blood, urine and other bodily fluids. The card/chip is engraved with icroscopic channels and capillary structures. In the walls of the of these channels, the scientists use nanotechnology; molecule-thick layers that ensure that the chip operates as a biological system, so that they can read off the results of their tests.

“We build up individual layers of molecules in order to obtain surfaces with sensitive areas. These can react with and thus measure individual molecules that act as markers of specific diseases, for instance in blood,” says Furuberg.

“Could these chips lead to new types of environmental problems?”

“No. This technology utilises functional thin films as the surface of large chips. We are working at the nanometre level, but there are no nanoparticles involved, only nanostructured surfaces, and the chemical compounds these employ are exactly the same as those used in normal laboratories,” answers Furuberg. “Analyses performed in microchips actually produce much less waste than conventional diagnostic systems. In our case, no particles are involved, only thin films.”

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