While researching the new edition of the Nanotechnology Opportunity Report™ I was shocked by the amount of cash that had been poured down the drain by venture capital, almost a billion dollars over the last seven years. At the same time, I have been involved in nanotech related deals totalling close to a billion dollars in the last eighteen months, …
Toxic Food Nano Poison and a Slow Lingering Death for the Human Race?
A scientist injecting fruit with toxic nanoparticles before feeding it to your children to make lots of money? Friends of the Earth in Australia, who have been running a long anti nanotech campaign have just released a new report prompting sensationalist and confused headlines headlines like this – “Is nanotechnology a toxic food nano poison in Australia?“As always, it’s a …
Waste Water
Water and development seems to be a popular topic for discussion, but about as popular as the Ebola virus when it comes to taking any action. Richard Jones highlighted yet another talking shop over at Soft Machines, and one that look depressingly familiar. The most bizarre water project I came across was a Middle Eastern country which was looking for …
The First Green Nanoweapon?
According to a BBC report, Russia’s new thermobaric bomb “contains about seven tons of high explosives compared with more than eight for the Moab (the US developed Massive Ordnance Air Burst unofficially called Mother Of All Bombs) but is four times more powerful because it uses a new type of explosives developed with the use of nanotechnology” Before anyone gets …
A Reality Check For Solar Nanotech
While the sustainability bandwagon rolls inexorably on, I have noticed an increasing number of presentations claiming that nanotechnology will solve the worlds problems. Otillia Saxl of the IoN pointed out recently in Norway a number of ways that nanotechnologies can provide solutions, although I was rather glad that she didn’t go into the precise details of how nanotechnology can solve …
The sterilizing, deodorizing, antifouling self-cleaning, internet browsing, MP3 playing , picture taking, infrared, bluetooth, 3G enabled nanotech phone
Not quite an iPhone Nano, but a patent for a phone having a bamboo casing with an “outer surface and a coating containing nanoparticles”. Bamboo has been chosen as it is “natural and recyclable”. The bamboo would be pre-treated with gamma-rays making it more durable and removing any bacteria, moisture, debris and contamination. To make the phone even more high …
Carbon Crazy
Anyone reading or listening to British news over the last few days will have noticed that the country has gone carbon crazy with politicians falling over themselves to be the greenest. The United Kingdom unveiled plans to set a “legally binding” target to cut carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. The European Union has agreed to cut emissions by 20% …
Serious Silicon Shortage Hampers Solar : Enter Nanotech
Red Herring reports on a US Department of Energy initiative to bring down the cost of solar energy – it needs to be below 10 cents per kilowatt hour to be competitive and current technologies cost around double that. The usual nanotech suspects crop up, with $20 million to Nanosolar and another chunk to Konarka. One of the reasons that …
Sustainable Nanotech Dishwashing
Continuing the theme of nanotech and sustainibility, possibly at the risk of flogging a dead horse, Blog@Nanovic report on the Swash dishwasher which is “is designed to use steam for cleaning and sterilisation, thus eliminating the need for detergent, and it also has a water reservoir and nanofiltration system, enabling the water supply to be continually purified and reused.”
Sustainable Nanotech
One of the great breakthroughs we expected from nanotechnology was abundant clean energy, and the plentiful supply of funds diverted towards companies such as Konarka and Nanosolar (and previously Nanosys) indicated that there was plenty ofopportunities in that sector. With the coming mania for Cleantech, we decided to take a look at nanotech and energy in a new report and …