small plans: nanotechnology for the building industry

Visit us at Green Technology Forum

2007-01-11T13:24:00.000-08:00

Thanks for visiting smallplans, and I invite you to come see us at Green Technology Forum. There you'll find the latest news, commentary and research on nanotechnology and biotechnology for growing green businesses. Whether you're in design, science, business or education you'll find valuable information and insights on these revolutionary technologies at GTF.

Mood lighting for walls and ceilings

2006-07-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

Imagine changing the color of your walls and ceilings to fit your mood. That's what researchers at the University of Surrey hope to achieve with solid state lighting devices using nano-composite materials.

"This will completely change the way we use lighting," said, project leader Professor Ravi Silva. "Ultra Low Energy High Brightness Light (ULEHB) lighting will produce the same quality light as the best 100 watt light bulb, but using only a fraction of the energy and last many times longer."

These new ultra low energy lighting devices will be fabricated using carbon nanotube-organic composites which will significantly reduce energy running costs, thus reducing carbon dioxide emissions at power generating stations, says a report at Azonano.com.

ULEHB lighting may offer a cost efficient and clean replacement solution for mercury based fluorescent lamps and many other low efficiency 'heat producing' light sources.

Potential uses such as variable mood lighting over a whole wall or ceiling opens up a range of exciting applications. ULEHB is also expected to have wide uses in signage, displays, street lighting, commercial lighting, public buildings, offices and image projectors. The patented technology can also be used for low cost solar cell production and has the versatility to be tuned to produce eye pleasing coloured light. (photo halfass.com)

Nanotubes as Minuscule Metalworking Tools

2006-06-17T19:03:00.000-07:00

Bombarding a carbon nanotube with electrons causes it to collapse with such incredible force that it can squeeze out even the hardest of materials, much like a tube of toothpaste. Now, research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) suggests that carbon nanotubes can act as minuscule metalworking tools, offering the ability to process materials as in a nanoscale jig or extruder, according to an RPI press release.

Engineers use a variety of tools to manipulate and process metals. For example, handy “jigs” control the motion of tools, and extruders push or draw materials through molds to create long objects of a fixed diameter. The newly reported findings suggest that nanotubes could perform similar functions at the scale of atoms and molecules, the researchers say.

“Researchers will need a wide range of tools to manipulate structures at the nanoscale, and this could be one of them,” says Pulickel Ajayan, the Henry Burlage Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer.

The researchers filled carbon nanotubes with nanowires made from two extremely hard materials: iron and iron carbide. When irradiated with an electron beam, the collapsing nanotubes squeezed the materials through the hollow core along the tube axis, as in an extrusion process (pictured).

These jigs could be perfect nanoscale laboratories to study the effects of deformation in nanostructures by observing them directly in an electron microscope, the researchers suggest. (photo RPI)

Nanotec offers protection for wood, glass, metal, concrete and textiles

2006-06-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

Nanotec is an Australian firm producing a range of nanocoatings for protecting wood, metal, concrete, glass and textiles.

Nanoseal Wood is, according to the company website, a water-based nanotechnology product for long lasting water repellent effect on wood.

Nanoseal Wood enables wood to resist decay and discoloration by wood-decay fungi, which need moisture to live.

Due to the water repellent effect Nanoseal Wood also decreases the swelling and shrinking that lead to cracking and warping.

The nano-hydrophobic treatment is resistant to friction, UV-stable and change temperature steady

Key Benefits:

Water-repelling
Dirt-deflecting
Weather protection
UV - weather-resistant
Easy to clean- Self cleaning effect
Environmentally sound technology

I’ve just ordered some to use in the construction of the new office of Nanosearch, my research and advising firm (more on that later). I’ll let you know how it performs.

Conference explores design, ethics and nanotechnology

2006-06-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

The Experimedia Center at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia will be the site of “Questions for the Future: Ethics, Nanotechnology and Design” on July 13.

The conference is sponsored by lab.3000, a “centre of excellence in design committed to building Victoria’s design capability and reputation across design professionals, creative industries, manufacturing and education.”

Speakers include:

Dr. Peter Binks, CEO of Nanotechnology Victoria Limited and member, Advisory Board for the National Nanotechnology Taskforce, a prominent speaker and writer on issues of nanotechnology, presenting an overview on nanotechnology products.

Mark Seggie, a graphic designer from Resin Design.

Mats Bjorklund will demonstrate how he animates nanotechnology materials, materials too small for the human eye to see.

Professor John St James Stewart Buckeridge, Chair of the Bioethics Committee of the International Union of Biological Sciences, and consultant on environmental ethics to UNESCO’s COMEST, will present an ethical viewpoint on nanotechnology products and materials.

“One droplet of this tiny product,” according to Buckeridge’s presentation abstract, “could wipe out the entire US army...... What if?”

That’s one of the oddest tag lines I’ve ever seen for a nanotech talk. What product is he talking about? It certainly doesn’t exist today, nor will it ever exist (if only because the US army’s spread around the globe and couldn’t be isolated to wipe out with a single drop of anything.)

Sounds like another alarmist attention-getter intended to fill seats at the event by raising false fears among the general public.

But I love the idea of a conference focusing on ethics, design and nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is going to change how we design everything, so we’d better start exploring the consequences today. (photo lab.3000)

Nanotech sensors to be featured at Sensors Expo 2006

2006-06-02T04:09:00.000-07:00

Nanotech-enabled sensors will be featured at next week’s Sensors Expo 2006 outside Chicago.

Applied Nanotech (ANI) will present carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide devices and a hydrogen sensor for power transformers.

ANI will exhibit products and technologies related to four advanced sensor platforms: gated metal oxide sensors (GMOS), photo-acoustic sensing system (PAS), metal nanoparticle sensors (MNPS), and enzyme-coated carbon nanotube biosensors (ECNT). Nanotech-enabled sensors have application in commercial, industrial processing, building environmental control and monitoring, defense, and homeland security. (photo ANI)

Better beer thanks to nanotech insulation

2006-05-31T12:39:00.000-07:00

Nanotechnology is truly impacting every aspect of our lives these days, now including the beer we drink.

Industrial Nanotech said in an announcement today that the maker of Corona, the fourth most popular beer in the world, is using Nansulate High Heat for thermal insulation and corrosion protection on an interchanger, a common piece of industrial equipment found in the industry.

And get this: The interchanger showed a 20 degrees Centigrade (36 degrees Fahrenheit) difference after a three coat application of Nansulate, at a thickness of approximately 7 mils (seven one thousands of an inch).

So let’s see, we’ve got fiberglass at R-19, rigid foam at R-30, and now Nansulate at about what, R-1,000,000,000? Pretty good stuff.

They make paint for buildings too. (photo beerpictures.net)

Nanobeads create environmentally friendly wood preservative

2006-05-25T13:32:00.000-07:00

Researchers at Michigan Technological University have discovered a way to embed organic insecticides and fungicides in plastic beads only about 100 nanometers across, according to an AScribe Newswire report.

"Six hundred of them in a row would be about the width of a human hair," says Peter Laks, a professor in the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, who pioneered the work along with Pat Heiden, a chemistry professor.

Suspended in water, the beads are small enough to travel through the wood when it is placed under pressure. "Wood has a very fine, sieve-like structure," Laks said. "You need particles small enough to fit through those very small channels."

The beads go right to the heart of the wood and stay there, protecting it from decay.

The technology has been licensed to the New Jersey-based company Phibro-Tech, which supplies chemicals to the wood preservation industry.

The technology may be tiny, but the advantages could be huge. "It allows the industry to use more environmentally friendly biocides," said Jim Baker, Michigan Tech's director of technology partnerships.

Thermal barrier coating wins award

2006-05-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

nCoat has announced that one of its nano-structured coatings has won the Utah Innovations Award in the Chemicals/Materials Science category of the fourth annual Stoel Utah Innovations Awards competition.

The winning nCoat nanotechnology-based coating is specially designed to protect materials requiring a high level of heat resistance (thermal barrier). The nCoat coating has been tested and used for use on space vehicles to create thermal barriers upon re-entry. nCoat's nano-coating has been tested to withstand temperatures in excess of 4,200 degrees Fahrenheit for sustained durations.

"The commercial prospects are huge and apply across multiple markets,” said Paul Clayson, nCoat's co-founder, CEO and chairman. “This team has created a world-class product." (photo nCoat)

Mercury-devouring nanomaterial now commercially available

2006-05-23T15:03:00.000-07:00

A material designed to capture and remove mercury and other toxic substances from industrial waste streams is now available for commercial use, according to EurekAlert.

Battelle has licensed the SAMMS technology developed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to Steward Environmental Solutions of Chattanooga, Tenn. Battelle operates the laboratory for the Department of Energy and transfers lab-developed technologies to the marketplace.

SAMMS, or Self-Assembled Monolayers on Mesoporous Supports, is a technology that can be tailored to selectively remove metal contaminants without creating hazardous waste or by-products. Steward intends to initially market use of the SAMMS for treating stack emissions from coal fired power plants, process industry and municipal facilities.

In tests conducted at PNNL, 99.9 percent of mercury in simulated waste water was successfully removed. That reduction places the mercury levels well below the Environmental Protection Agency's discharge limits. This could equate to significant savings in disposal charges for users with mercury or other toxic metals in their facility waste streams, said Rick Skaggs, PNNL commercialization lead. (photo PNNL)

Site analysis for nanotech labs

2006-05-19T06:39:00.000-07:00

Departing from our usual emphasis on materials, let’s look at the design of nanotech labs.

Nanotechnology facilities, according to R&D Magazine, are appearing rapidly at university campuses, government installations, and science parks around the world due to the extensive governmental and institutional competition to exploit the economic development advantages of this relatively new technology.

The first important steps for nanotechnology facilities include site and facility assessments to see if the research, can indeed, be performed on the site.

In terms of nanotech facility planning, a “one site does not fit all” approach may be the best description. The research being carried out in these facilities require controls for excessive vibration, noise, electromagnetic interference (EMI), and radio frequency interference (RFI), all which vary from site to site, as well as strict attention to “interior contaminants” including, temperature, air quality, and life safety issues.

All of these design issues must be identified and quantified as early as possible in order to minimize cost impact on the project.

The full article is available in pdf form. (photo Purdue University)

Hybrid coatings increase hardness of plastic

2006-05-18T00:44:00.000-07:00

Increasing the surface hardness of many materials opens them up for use in a wide variety of new applications. These new hybrid materials could be used in areas like anticorrosion coatings for metals, scratch and abrasion resistant coatings for plastics, antistatic films plus color decorative coatings for glass and plastics.

Researchers at the Universidad Autonoma de Sinaloa, Fuente de Poseidon y Prol and Centro de Investigacion y Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional developed composite materials with reinforced properties to produce hybrid coatings combining the complementary properties of inorganic and organic materials.

They found that the hardness of the hybrid coatings was three to ten times higher than that of ordinary acrylic plastics. Their full paper is available at azom.com. (photo Plastics Institute of America)

Nanotube sandwich creates super-strong fabric

2006-05-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

By stacking layers of ceramic cloth with interlocking nanotubes in between, a team of researchers has created new composites with significantly improved properties compared to traditional materials. The “nanotube sandwiches” could find use in a wide array of structural applications, according to a Rensselaer press release.

To make the new materials, the researchers at Rensselaer and the University of Hawaii at Manoa deposited a forest of carbon nanotubes across the surface of a cloth woven from fibers of silicon carbide — a ceramic compound made from silicon and carbon. The fabric layers were infiltrated with a high-temperature epoxy matrix, and then several layers of cloth were stacked on top of each other to form a three-dimensional composite “sandwich,” with interlocking nanotubes acting to fasten the layers together.

The researchers ran several experiments to test the new material’s properties, and they found that the interlocking nanotubes provided remarkable improvements in strength and toughness under various loading conditions.

Tests also showed that both the thermal and electrical conductivity of the new composites were significantly improved, which means that they could potentially be employed as sensors to monitor crack propagation in various structures. (photo University of Hawaii/Vinod Veedu)

Wireless sensors sniff out toxins

2006-05-11T03:20:00.000-07:00

While nanotechnology is transforming the materials buildings are made from, there’s another more subtle revolution underway as well. It’s in the area of remote sensing, which could have a big impact on controlling Sick Building Syndrome, improving building security, and the operation of appliances and HVAC systems.

Thanks to nanotechnology, sensors are becoming so small that we can monitor many conditions in buildings in ways never possible before. Dr. Kensall Wise, Director of the Center for Wireless Integrated MicroSystems at the University of Michigan calls wireless integrated microsystems (WMS) "the final frontier in the pervasiveness of microelectronics.”

He’s working on a micropower environmental monitor for the precision analysis of gaseous materials. This wristwatch-sized device can detect the presence of toxic gasses at the level of just 100 parts per trillion. It can also monitor temperature, humidity, pressure and more. It can recognize the presence of mustard gas in a building’s air supply in just 4 seconds.

Oh, and microsensors can sniff out money too. US border security officials sponsored the development of a sensor at the University of Michigan that detects the gasses given off by the ink on paper bills, making it easier to catch currency smugglers.

Wise presented his findings in “Wireless Integrated Microsystems (WMS): Coming Revolution in the Gathering of Information” at the Nano Science and Technology conference in Boston. (photo University of Michigan)

Solar startups shine at NSTI conference

2006-05-09T17:20:00.000-07:00

Solar startups took center stage at today’s Nano Science and Technology conference in Boston.

Solar represents less than .5% of today’s energy market, but that’s about to change. The solar market is $7 billion, growing 30% annually, and with crude oil prices going through the roof, that percentage is sure to grow.

Nanotechnology figures to be a big player in the new solar market, as two startups pitching to investors today demonstrated.

Damoder Reddy presented a technology pioneered by startup Solexant that captures infrared (IR) radiation typically not captured by traditional silicon-based solar cells. 45% of solar radiation is IR, explained Reddy, and today's solar technologies don't capture it.

The company uses IR photon absorbing nanostructures and brodband thin film solar cells that can be combined with traditional solar cells to create hybrid cells.

The technology could be used to create window films that generate energy and reduce heat gain, said Reddy.

David Waimann presented OrionSolar Photovoltaics’ plan to produce low-cost dye cell photovoltaics.

Dye cells can be much less expensive than silicon cells, potentially reducing the cost per peak watt from $2 to 65 cents.

Waimann and his colleagues think the biggest market for solar will be the do-it-yourself (DIY) market because of the high cost of installation. They propose to cut the cost of DIY installations in half with their 'concertina' folding panels. (photo OrionSolar)

Architectural applications abound at Nano Science and Technology conference

2006-05-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

Today’s post comes to you live from the floor of the 2006 Nano Science and Technology conference in Boston, where I’m presenting the work of my NanoStudio.

There’s no shortage of nanomaterials for the construction industry, including the following:

Spire Corporation makes Building Integrated Photovoltaics that enable architects and contractors to integrate photovoltaic technology into the design of a building or structure so that the solar components also serve as structural or design elements.

Evident Technologies offers quantum dots for white LEDs, leading to lighting fixtures of any color and shape.

Raynor Industries is the world’s leading producer of single-walled carbon nanotubes, which they believe will eventually replace steel in buildings because they are 100 times stronger at 1/6 the weight.

Advance Nanotech fosters a wide range of building-related applications including flexible displays.

Accsense makes tiny wireless sensors for monitoring temperature, humidity and a host of other environmental factors.

Miami to host “The Future of Nanocoatings and Ultra-thin Films” conference

2006-05-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

The Future of Nanocoatings and Ultra-thin Films conference will be May 17, 2006 in Miami.

According to host Intertech-Pira:

The Future of Nanocoatings and Ultra-Thin Films will give you a chance to move from studying projections and hype to learning how the technology can add real value and tangibly improve your products – with genuine benefits for your bottom line!

This breakthrough technology is undoubtedly ripe with potential but how do you move it from the lab to the market? The Future of Nanocoatings and Ultra-Thin Films brings together experts from across the supply chain to explore and demonstrate routes to commercial success. You’ll hear live case studies from companies that have generated outstanding results. Find out how to achieve the rewards and avoid pitfalls.

This is a vital event for businesses across the coating and nanotechnology supply chain. You need up-to-date information on the latest technological developments and commercial realities in nanocoatings and ultra thin films:

Discover new applications for your products, get updates on what the competition is doing and scientific breakthroughs with investment potential.

Understand end users’ demands, expectations and needs. Assess the current market situation and the direction your company should take for the future.

Get the first hand information about the most exciting technological innovations. Assess their potential for improving your existing products, streamlining production, reducing costs, and staying in the frontline of your industry. (photo City of Miami Beach)

Bio-based composite gives new meaning to green roof

2006-05-04T20:06:00.000-07:00

Researchers at the University of Delaware’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Center for Composite Materials have created a bio-based composite roof structure using soy.

Soy oil-based resin and cellulose fibers, in the form of paper sheets made from recycled cardboard boxes, were successfully used to manufacture the composite structures.

The roof was designed and a 1/3 scale structure was manufactured. Following this 1/3 scale design, two composite panels were manufactured to serve as the two sides of a pitched roof connected at the ridge.

The recycled paper was tested in composite sheets and structural unit beams and gave the required stiffness and strength required for roof construction.

The authors, M.A. Dweib, B. Hu, H.W. Shenton III and R.P. Wool, have made their abstract and article available in the journal, Composite Structures.

Cabot enters pipe insulation arena with four new Nanogel products

2006-05-04T07:26:00.000-07:00

Cabot Corporation has entered the oil and gas insulation market with the launch of four new Nanogel aerogel products, says a company press release.

The four new products use Nanogel aerogel, Cabot's branded aerogel in different forms and are marketed under the names Expansion Pack, Compression Pack, Particle Pack, and Thermal Wrap.

With an operating temperature range from -200 degrees C to 250 degrees C (-330 degrees F -480 degrees F), Nanogel systems can be used where many competing insulations cannot.

The Particle Pack system leverages Cabot's proprietary particle filling techniques to fill annular spaces of any size or dimension. Cabot has been using this technology to fill spaces as narrow as a few millimeters with Nanogel aerogel in the building and construction market. In particulate form Nanogel flows like water and with proper vibration techniques can be densely packed for long life, high performance use without settling or shifting without any residual air gaps.

Sometimes called "frozen smoke," aerogels are the lightest and best insulating solids in the world. Nanogel, Cabot's branded aerogel is a hydrophobic aerogel produced as particles each of which consists largely of air (approx. 95%) trapped in nano-sized pores that severely inhibit heat transfer through the material.

Nanogel is already available for a variety of building applications.

Nanowire electrodes: the link between brain and building?

2006-05-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

Researchers at New York University and MIT have developed a nanowire electrode that can send and receive signals to the brain, according to Technology Review.

"This is a completely out-of-the box way to think about enabling deep-brain stimulation," says Joseph Pancrazio, program director for neural engineering projects at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Patrick Anquetil, a mechanical engineering postdoctoral fellow at MIT, says they have made polymers that act as pressure sensors, and they see the possibility of using semiconducting polymers as the basis for simple electric switches.

"One thing that really excites us about this is, in principle, there's no reason why, with the same material, you cannot build a whole system in which you have contraction, measurement, sensing, and computation," says Anquetil.

Eventually, nanowire electrodes for sensing and computation could form the interface between brains and buildings. As buildings become smarter, they will become increasingly interactive with their users. Building components will increasingly be able to communicate with their users, raising the question of how much interaction we want.

Will we want to exchange information electronically with our buildings? Computers give us some distance between ourselves and our information, but as nanotechnologies like these advance, we’ll have the power to integrated that information more directly to our brains. Is that a good thing? (photo Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation/Technology Review)

Gold nanoparticles are powerful heaters

2006-05-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

Nanoparticles of gold can act as tiny, precise and powerful heaters, according to a new study.

When stimulated with the right frequency of laser light, a small collection of metal nanoparticles, such as gold, can heat an area up to 1,000 times its size, according to Ohio University scientists Hugh Richardson and Sasha Govorov.

Other scientists are using that superheating capacity in novel applications that could result in huge reductions in heating bills, according to the Smart Economy Blog.

By suspending nanoparticles made of gold or other materials such as carbon, copper or copper oxide in water or other liquids, engineers have created 'nanofluids' which can transfer heat up to 400% faster than other liquids (up from 150% in 2003).

In a central heating system, nanofluids could increase efficiency without the need to use a more powerful pump, saving energy and providing major environmental benefits. (photo Hugh Richardson)

Carbon nanotubes used to create fire-resistant plastics

2006-04-30T19:11:00.000-07:00

Materials scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology are using carbon nanotubes to make plastics more resistant to fire.

Jack Douglas and his colleagues found that plastics containing nantubes don't burn as easily as ordinary plastics. The nanotubes create a layer of insulation when plastic boils, and also reduce the bubbling that fuels combustion.

"Normally,” Douglas said, “when plastic burns, it looks like a lava field. There are a lot of hot cracks where heat is being released. But in plastics containing carbon nanotubes, you don't get those cracks forming."

The nanotube alternative may help reduce the reliance on the toxic additives traditionally use to make plastics fire-resistant.

Hear the interview with Douglas at Earth & Sky. (photo Frank Douglas)

Tiny biomimetic camera creates artificial eye

2006-04-28T02:55:00.000-07:00

Here’s an invention that brings two major issues in nanotechnology to the fore.

Using the eyes of houseflies as models, a team of bioengineers at University of California, Berkeley, has created a series of artificial compound eyes, according to EurekAlert.

These eyes could eventually be used as cameras or sensory detectors to capture visual or chemical information from a wider field of vision than previously possible, even with the best fish-eye lens, said Luke P. Lee, the team's principal investigator. Potential applications include surveillance, high-speed motion detection and environmental sensing.

What he and his team came up with is a low-cost, easy-to-replicate method of creating pinhead-sized polymer resin domes spiked with thousands of light-guiding channels, each topped with its own lens. Not only are these units packed together in the same hexagonal, honeycomb pattern as in an insect's compound eye, but each is also remarkably similar in size, design, shape and function to an ommatidium, the individual sensory unit of a compound eye.

That’s the first issue this discovery raises: biomimicry. It seems that almost every day a new breakthrough occurs in nanotechnology based on a biological design. It’s great to see scientists looking at nature, wondering how it works, and applying that sense of wonder in the lab to create new things.

On the other hand, this particular advance raises the thorny issue of privacy, another frequent concern in nanotechnology. When we can fit a thousand cameras on the head of a pin, we’ll never know when we’re being watched.

We’ve already seen cellphones banned from many locker rooms because so many cells have cameras and it’s unclear when a picture’s being taken. But when cameras can be woven into clothing or invisibly integrated into buildings, how will we protect ourselves from unwanted observation? (photo Charles Krebs)

Nano-switch links biological, mechanical worlds

2006-04-27T02:48:00.000-07:00

A switch so small it can move DNA fragments could lead to deeper integration of biological and human-made materials.

The researchers used a type of molecular motor known as a 'Restriction-Modification enzyme'. This molecular motor attaches itself only to specific sequences of DNA.

The DNA strand is held upright by a magnetic field, pulling a magnetic marker at the end of the DNA strand. The molecular motor sits somewhere below the magnetic marker at a specific position, and does not move. When the molecular engine is started, when fed biological fuel ATP, it pulls the DNA strand, stopping when it reaches the magnetic marker.

“Frankly, some researchers didn't think what we were doing was possible,” says Dr Keith Firman, on the completion of the Mol-Switch project that he coordinates. “It could be used as a communicator between the biological and silicon worlds. I could see it providing an interface between muscle and external devices, through its use of ATP, in human implants.”

Six partners, the University of Portsmouth, UK; the National Physical Laboratory, UK; ENS/CNRS, France; TUDelft, the Netherlands; the University of Parma, Italy and the Institute of Microbiology in Prague, the Czech Republic, developed the nano-device over three years.

A switch capable of integrating biological materials like DNA with inorganic ones is an important step in the creation of biomaterials that combine the advantages of traditional, non-living materials like silicon for electronics or carbon for structures with living cells or DNA.

Architectural applications could conceivably include photosynthetic walls or breathable windows.

More info on the Mol-Switch project is available at Nanonet. (photo Cordis information service)

Photomicrography competition reveals nanoworld

2006-04-26T06:44:00.000-07:00

While we tend to focus on nanotechnology as a provider of new materials, it can also provide design inspiration.

At the Small World Photomicrography Competition website you’ll find an amazing array of images from the nanoworld. Most of the work is at the microscale, an order of magnitude bigger than nanoscale, but it's still a magnificent showcase exposing the beauty of an unseen world.

Pictured is last year’s 3rd prize winner by Stefan Eberhard, revealing the microstructure of crystallized vitamin A

I highly recommend the gallery both for its sheer aesthetic pleasure and as a way to get to know the nanoworld. A picture, in this case, is worth a billion words.