Nanomaterials

Getting to grips with nanomaterial toxicity

by Andrew Maynard December 15, 2008

Introducing MINChar—a new community initiative to support effective material characterization in nanotoxicity studies. Here’s a tough one:  Imagine you have a new substance—call it substance X—and you run some tests to see how toxic it is.  But you’re not quite sure what substance X is. You know that it is a powder, and it is [...]

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Taking a fresh look at nanomaterials

by Andrew Maynard November 11, 2008

The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution report on Novel Materials Imagine for one naïve moment that we have a pretty good handle on managing the environmental impact of existing manufactured “stuff”.  Then someone comes along and invents some “new stuff” that behaves very differently from the “old stuff.” How can we be sure that the [...]

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Value-added nanotechnology

by Andrew Maynard September 3, 2008

Amidst the cacophony of debate swirling around the true meaning of nanotechnology, I head a voice or reason last week.  The voice was that of Dr. Bernd Sachweh of BASF, speaking at the European Aerosol Conference in Thessoloniki. I paraphrase, but the essence of Bernd’s point was this: ‘Nano’ is not a thing or a product.  It has [...]

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Smart materials; smart choices?

by Andrew Maynard May 31, 2008

Why nano?  Why care?  For non-nanotech initiates, an obsession with nanotechnology must sometimes seem a bizarre occupation of the sad and lonely.  And even within the nanotechnology community, who hasn’t had occasional doubts over the legitimacy of singling out “nano” as something special?  Yet occasionally a piece of work comes along that helps put things [...]

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Nano-silver: Looking a little tarnished?

by Andrew Maynard May 2, 2008

The author Neal Stephenson got it wrong—at least, if this week’s nano-news is anything to go by!   In his landmark 1995 novel “The Diamond Age,” Stephenson described a future built on nano-innovation.  But thirteen years later, nanotechnology seems to be ushering in “The Silver Age.”  And to some it’s looking a little tarnished. First we [...]

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