Nanotechnology’s First Fruits-Products nearing market promise to lead the budding industry from hype to reality

When most people think about nanotechnology, they
usually conjure images of microscopically tiny
contraptions such as the invisibly small submarine
that was injected into a character’s bloodstream in the
classic 1966 sci-fi movie "Fantastic Voyage."

Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate

Nanovehicles and the revolution they would create in
science, medicine, military affairs, and manufacturing
are still on the distant horizon.

But the budding nanotech industry is making
important progress in several other seemingly prosaic
but nonetheless useful areas, such as perfecting new
cosmetics, smaller batteries, better lightbulbs and
more effective pharmaceuticals. The first of these
products are expected to hit the market over the next
few years.

Experts say this is a crucial stage for
nanotechnology, which is beginning to move beyond
its early hype toward the practical, technical
stepping-stones and advanced manufacturing
processes that will eventually lead to the most
dramatic changes in the way humans live since our
ancestors first switched on the lights.

That was the message at last month’s Nanotech
Planet conference and expo in San Jose, which
brought together several hundred working
nanotechnologists and venture capitalists.
Predictably, the conference agenda included some
pretty far-out futuristic notions, such as manufacturing
facilities that construct themselves and "Star
Trek"-like molecular replicators capable of building
food and other items one atom at a time. But novelties
aside, most of the attention at the conference
centered on more practical matters, such as the
recent remarkable progress in bringing first-generation
nanotechnology products to market and the additional
opportunities that could be created once companies
learn how to make them.

The accelerating growth curve is expected to lead
roughly 300 nanotech companies to go public over the
next 10 years, according to an estimate by Neil
Weintraut, founder of 21st Century Venture Partners
in Palo Alto.

One of the first nanotech-related breakthroughs
consumers will see, for example, is a new type of
sunscreen — expected to start showing up on store
shelves within the next year or so — being perfected
by a German company that was discussed, but not
named, at the conference.

The sunscreen’s manufacturer (represented by one of
its lead investors) says the company has mastered
the task of making reliably miniscule particles of a
substance that can block out the sun’s harmful
ultraviolet rays. The benefits of this invention for sun
worshipers would be substantial. According to data
provided by the company, nano-size sun-blocking
chemicals do a much better job of blocking the sun’s
rays because they cover the skin more uniformly at a
microscopic level and aren’t dislodged as easily.
Current sunscreens, by contrast, can leave many
nanometer-size areas of the skin unprotected. Add all
those small, unprotected areas together and you can
get a pretty nasty sunburn, no matter how much of
the goop you’ve applied. (A nanometer is one billionth
of a meter, the width of about 10 atoms lined up
shoulder-to-shoulder. The head of a pin, by
comparison, is about one million nanometers in
diameter).

The same "small is beautiful" principle applies to a
new generation of nanotech hair dyes, which are
designed to make visits to the beauty parlor less
frequent. When the coloring chemicals, known as
pigment, are tinier, they likewise cover surfaces — in
this case hair — more evenly. The results are dyes
that should eventually last at least twice as long as
those now sold.

"We need to see a technology that can lead to real
products," explained Zwi Vromen, whose Israel-based
Millennium Materials Fund has made 19
nanotechnology investments to date.

The early interest in cosmetics, says Vromen, reflects
a desire among many sophisticated investors to avoid
lengthy entanglements in research and development
that may go nowhere. Instead, he says, new and
more exciting products can and will be built on the
foundations created by earlier, more simple products
such as sunscreen and hair dye.

"What we’re seeing are companies developing tools
first, materials second and then full nano systems,"
Charles Ostman, senior fellow at the San
Francisco-based Institute for Global Futures, told
those assembled at the conference.

One of the most compelling examples of such
materials, which can also be considered a new type of
tool, is a new breed of thin-film lithium-ion batteries
being developed by firms such as Elk River,
Minnesota-based Cymbet Corp. Once again, the
ability to make particles — in this case,
electricity-storing substances — very small promises a
huge payoff. Because these novel batteries are
nanotech based, they can absorb and discharge more
electricity more frequently and with greater efficiency.

To get a handle on this idea, think, for example, about
the relative efficiency of using one large sponge to sop
up water versus that of employing thousands of
mini-sponges. The water may never get to the center
of the large sponge, the outer layer of which quickly
becomes saturated. The smaller sponges, on the
other hand, can soak up and discharge water more
efficiently.

In the case of batteries, this approach translates into
a thin, flexible film that can be recharged up to an
astonishing 60,000 times. Literally thousands of
potential applications exist for these new, more
versatile nanotech-based batteries. The most exciting:
plans already under way at Minneapolis-based
Medtronics Inc. to use the batteries to power new
implantable medical devices, such as pacemakers
and perhaps (this remains highly speculative) even
small insulin pumps for diabetics. What makes the
batteries even more remarkable, according to an
investor in the company that developed them, is that
they can be recharged by radio waves that pass
harmlessly through body tissues.

This means that when a patient’s pacemaker (or any
other implantable device) is running low on juice, all
the person will need to do is stand near a recharging
device for a little while, instead of undergoing a
surgical procedure to replace the battery. The new
batteries promise to take advanced bionics out of the
realm of science fiction and put it more squarely in the
middle of everyday medical practice. The first
nano-batteries, which are also under development at
several other firms, are expected to be commercially
available before the end of this year.

Another dramatic announcement came from Southern
California’s American Pharmaceutical Partners Inc.,
which recently found a way to make smaller particles
of Taxol, a drug derived from the bark of the Pacific
yew tree that is used to treat and prevent recurrences
of breast cancer. It turns out that shrinking the drug
down to nano sizes (called nano-particles) allows
much more of the drug’s active ingredient to be taken
up by the affected body tissues, which, in turn,
roughly doubled the response rate in one test of
breast-cancer patients.

Even better, the nanotech process eliminated the use
of a toxic chemical called cremophor in manufacturing
Taxol doses, which also boosts the drug’s safety and
effectiveness. Formal introduction of this new type of
Taxol awaits additional testing and certification by the
FDA. But the basic idea, making drugs smaller so
targeted tissues in the body more readily absorb
them, appears to have thousands of other potentially
life-saving applications.

Other illuminating news at the conference centered on
a newly developed type of nanocrystal called a
nanophosphor that could help substantially alleviate
the energy crisis. Several companies, most notably
Nanocrystal Imaging Corp., headquartered in Briarcliff
Manor, New York, say they are close to perfecting or
have already perfected the ability to confine individual
atoms inside tiny nanocrystals. One result is a very
energy-efficient phosphor (a material that emits visible
light). The development could signal a breakthrough in
lighting technology, which has changed very little
since the days of Thomas Edison. The most common
tungsten-filament bulbs still use only about 5 percent
of the electricity they consume to produce light, with
the rest wasted as heat. Nanophosphors, on the other
hand, convert electricity into light with an efficiency
approaching 100 percent, making them roughly 20
times more efficient.

Worldwide, the energy savings would be enormous.
Practical nanophosphors would also presumably
reduce the demand for the generation of electricity,
including from fossil fuel-powered plants that
contribute to pollution and global warming. Outside
the United States, for example, between 60 and 80
percent of all electricity is used to power lightbulbs,
according to a recent Nanotech Planet report. In the
U.S., keeping the lights on accounts for roughly 25
percent of the average household’s energy
consumption.

"In 10 years’ time, we are absolutely positive we could
replace incandescent and florescent lights," Rajan
Pillai, one of the firm’s founders, said in an interview
between sessions at the conference. "Taking that one
step would make us much less dependent on foreign
sources of energy." Pillai added that his firm is in
negotiations with several leading players in the $3.2
billion-a-year lighting market.

Other existing industries that might be reshaped by
nano-improvements over the next few years include
everything from air conditioning and refrigeration (using
2 percent of current power levels) to better radiology
dyes (capable of generating more precise, detailed
images of internal structures). There’s also hope that
more practical and cost-efficient nano-absorbers might
be ready in time for the next big oil spill.

In the meantime, though, it looks like the cutting edge
of this revolution in chemistry and manufacturing will
be found in the same place it has often been found
since before the biblical era.

The cosmetics counter.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/06/06/nanotch.DTL