Green Technology Forum

Rona Fried, PhD, publisher, interviewed Green Technology Forum director Dr. George Elvin for the November 2007 issue of Progressive Investor:

Nanotechnology & Green Building

When you think of nanotechnology do you think of green building? Probably not, but nanotech, the manipulation of matter at the molecular scale, is already providing environmental benefits for buildings.

Although the market for nano-enhanced building materials in the U.S. was under $20 million in 2006, it’s expected to grow to $400 million by 2016. $4 billion a year is being pumped into nanotech R&D worldwide, resulting in a pipeline of materials and products that will transform the way future buildings are made.

Nano has the potential to greatly reduce emissions from buildings - which produce 43% of the world’s CO2 emissions - reduce construction waste, which accounts for 40% of landfill materials, while providing cleaner air and water inside buildings.

In the first wave, nanotech is making its way into insulation, coatings and solar PV. The next wave, currently in the development stage, will bring advances in lighting technology, air and water purification. In about ten years we’ll begin to see changes in structural components like concrete and steel, adhesives, and batteries.

We interviewed George Elvin, who recently published the fascinating report, “Nanotechnology for Green Building,” which identifies 130 startups and established companies offering or developing nanomaterials for green building. Elvin is director of the Green Technology Forum and Associate Professor at Ball State University.

PI: How is nano being used today in green building and who are the leading companies?

George Elvin:

Using nano to improve the performance of existing buildings is one of the great opportunities right now.

Nano insulation is one of the most commercialized nano products. It gets around the problem of insulating existing buildings, which is hard to do with bulky conventional materials like fiberglass. You literally paint or spray the insulation on - it’s invisible and non-toxic. The insulating coatings are so thin and clear that you don’t know they’re there.

With demand for energy efficient buildings rising, insulation is the most cost effective way to reduce carbon emissions from buildings - it lowers a building’s energy consumption by 42% while maintaining a comfortable indoor environment. Nano insulating materials are about 30% more efficient than conventional materials like fiberglass or cellulose.

Industrial Nanotech (INTK.PK), for example, is signing multi-million dollar contracts right and left. They also insulate pipelines - the coating insulates them from the weather, saving huge amounts of energy. In an example of another application, they just signed a big contract with the largest textile company in Turkey to coat some of their machinery. When you insulate machinery, the building’s cooling costs drop dramatically. It’s being applied to aluminum ceiling panels in the new Suvanabhumi International Airport in Bangkok, the world’s largest airport.

The company is developing the first prototype for insulation that actually generates electricity. The thin sheets of insulation - just a few thousands of an inch thick - use the temperature differential that insulation creates to generate electricity. In the future, they will be able to tap the difference in day and night time temperature between the inside and outside of a building, an almost constant source of energy.

Important emerging companies include Industrial Nanotech (Naples, Florida), Nanotec (Brookvale, Australia), Ecology Coatings (ECOC.OB) (Bloomfield Hills, Michigan) and Aspen Aerogels (Northborough, Massachusetts).

It’s interesting to see these young companies coming out of the labs and into the market. They often start when a scientist finds some amazing properties in the lab and builds a product around it, and then finds a business partner to start a company around the product.

Cabot Corp (NYSE: CBT) is a midcap company that makes aerogel insulation. It doubles the insulation and light transmission values of skylights and other daylighting technologies, enabling architects to design buildings with more natural light (reducing energy consumption).

Aerogel, dubbed “frozen smoke,” is the lightest weight solid in the world. The gel is filled with gas rather than liquid and is 95% air. Yet, it can support over 2,000 times its own weight. An 3.5 inch thick aerogel panel provides an R-value of R-28, previously unheard of in a translucent panel.

PI: How is nano used for coatings?

George Elvin:

That’s the other most established sector. Nanocoatings can be used to self-clean surfaces, and in the process they de-pollute - they actually remove air pollutants and dissolve them into relatively benign elements.

De-polluting nanocoatings break down toxins that come in contact with surfaces. When painted onto a road, bridge or building they not only protect the surface and reduce the need for cleaning, they eliminate some of the pollution that cars emit. It’s invisible and nontoxic.

Nanotec’s coatings are on a number of buildings around the world now. A building stays clean much longer, especially the windows, reducing the need for toxic chemical cleansers which emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs). They also have the potential to clean indoor air.

Self-cleaning windows were one of the first architectural applications of nanotech. The coating causes water to sheet off the surface, leaving a clean exterior with minimal spotting or streaking.

Kohler and other plumbing fixture manufacturers are starting to paint anti-microbial coatings on sinks and toilets, which means less maintenance and lower costs. Microban International makes a product called Microban, which is used in 450 products including cleaning supplies, paints, caulking and plumbing fixtures.

In the future, the technology could make pipes so smooth and slippery that they can’t plug up, wear out, and can carry much more water in a smaller pipe.

PI: What’s happening in solar?

George Elvin:

Nanotech solar is starting to offer real competition to conventional silicon-based solar manufacturing. It isn’t as efficient as conventional solar, but is steadily improving. It could replace silicon technology in 5-10 years. The Department of Energy estimates that 50% of the electrical needs of buildings in the U.S. can be met by BIPV systems.

NanoSolar has received $100 million in investments from some of the venture capital powerhouses, along with individual investors like the founders of Google. The company has the potential to transform the solar market with its “roll to roll” process, where thin film, nanotech solar cells are literally printed onto plastic or metal. It makes integrating solar into a building more like printing a newspaper, a major advance from glass plates that are installed on rooftops.

Solar sheets can be made for about a tenth of what current panels cost at a rate of several hundred feet per minute. When full production starts in early 2008, NanoSolar says it will produce 430 MW of solar cells a year. Its SolarPly BIPV panels, made from semiconductor quantum dots and other nanoparticles, will create solar-electric “carpet” to be integrated into commercial roofing membranes.

Spire, Innovalight, Konarka, HelioVolt and Solexant are other important nano solar companies all involved with building integrated PV solar (BIPV). STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) is a large cap company that’s developing nanotech applications for new solar cell technologies [editor note: STM was on our SB20 List for several years].

Spire Corp (Nasdaq: SPIR) integrates solar into façade elements like windows and awnings. Its nanostructured materials make fabricating solar cells more efficient and enables solar to be available in various colors, giving architects options for improved aesthetics.

Innovalight is developing silicon ink-based printed solar cells. By processing silicon with liquids, the company believes it can reduce the cost of solar by over 50%. The founder, Alf Bjorseth, is the former CEO of Renewable Energy Corp (REC), one of the world’s largest vertically integrated solar companies. The recent capital raise of $28 million should move Innovalight from development to production.

PI: What’s happening in lighting?

George Elvin:

LED lighting is already a $4 billion market, and organic LEDs (OLED) are coming soon. It’s a potentially huge market with a lot of money going into research. In the long run - at least 10 years off - we’re looking at exciting developments that will change the relationship between lighting and building.

OLEDs are like thin film solar in that they are printed onto substrates. When activated by electricity, they provide brighter, crisper displays on electronic devices and use far less energy than LEDs. TVs will be less than ¼ inch thick and will be able to be rolled up when not in use. OLEDs can be applied to any surface, flat or curved, to turn it into a light source. In the future, light panels will replace light bulbs - walls, floors, ceilings, curtains, cabinets and tables could all become sources of light.

They are beginning to appear in small consumer devices like cellphone screens and are starting to enter the architectural lighting market.

Universal Display Corp (Nasdaq: PANL) is an important company here. Philips (NYSE: PHG) [Editor Note: on our 2007 SB20 List] and GE (NYSE: GE) are picking up the technologies.

PI: Tell me about some of the areas that are further in the future.

George Elvin:

Think about all the applications that can benefit from greater efficiency and you’ll find a role for nanotech. It will make batteries more efficient, create new supercapacitors, lead to advances in thermovoltaics for turning waste heat into electricity, create improved materials to store hydrogen, as well as more efficient hydrocarbon based fuel cells.

Altair Nanotechnologies (Nasdaq: ALTI) is one of the most established companies that’s developing batteries - their NanoSafe product will be used in the new line of electric Phoenix motorcars. AlwaysReady, a subsidiary of mPhase Technologies (XDSL.OB), is bringing its Smart Nanobattery to market.

Nanotechnologies for water and air filtration, which are widely available as consumer products, will increasingly penetrate the market for built-in filtration systems. Donaldson Company (NYSE: DCI) is active in this area. NanoH2O, a development stage company, is creating advanced membrane materials for the desalination and water reuse industries.

NanoDynamics is another interesting company that’s involved in a wide range of nano applications like water purification, coatings, fuel storage and batteries. It’s planning an IPO on the Dubai exchange.

Research is also underway to use nano for fire protection and to enhance structural materials including steel, concrete and wood.

PI: Are you concerned about any safety issues with nanotech?

George Elvin:

Nanoparticles are more readily absorbed into the body than larger particles - unfortunately, little is known about how they accumulate in the body or the environment. Silver nanoparticles, which are proven antibacterial agents and are incorporated into many nanotech paints and coatings, are subject to the first EPA regulations in the field. There are concerns that nanosilver might accumulate in the environment, killing beneficial bacteria and aquatic organisms.

There are also questions about how employees in nano manufacturing plants may be affected. A recent study showed cancer-causing compounds, air pollutants and toxic hydrocarbons associated with carbon nanotube manufacturing. Four major U.S. nanotube producers are developing strategies for environmentally sensitive production.

You’ve been absorbing titanium dioxide nanoparticles for years through your sunscreen - it’s used in many cosmetics and other dermal applications to make white particles disappear into the skin.

DuPont and Environmental Defense are some of the company/ NGO partners working together to develop regulatory policies.

Other factors also stand in the way of widespread adoption. The cost of many nanotech products and processes are still high, and the building industry has always been slow to adopt new technologies. The lack of independent testing and the current reliance on manufacturer claims of architectural and environmental performance is also a problem.

Nanotechnology for green building will reduce waste and toxicity, as well as energy and raw material consumption in the building industry, resulting in cleaner, healthier buildings.

I think those that adopt nanotech for green building will emerge as leaders and be rewarded
accordingly for their services. And for nanotech companies, green building is one their largest markets.

This article is reprinted with permission from Progressive Investor, a monthly newsletter that guides people toward green (cleantech) investments. Learn more: http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/progressiveinvestor.main

As inspectors sift through the debris of the Minneapolis Interstate 35 bridge collapse, I can’t help but think how nanotechnology could have prevented the tragedy. If a network of nanosensors or microsensors like the ones currently in place on the Golden Gate Bridge had been in place on the Minneapolis bridge, they might have warned of impending failure. Microsensors in place on the Golden Gate Bridge give a real-time, comprehensive picture of the bridge’s performance. They can measure stresses at any point along the structure along with their potential impact on the rest of the bridge.

Nanosensors and microsensors combine low manufacturing costs, compact size, low weight and power consumption, as well as increasing intelligence and multi-functionality. Their market is predicted to grow from $36 billion to $52 billion in 2009. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it grow even faster as engineers look for new ways to prevent disasters like the Minneapolis bridge collapse.

The introduction of nanotechnology and biotechnology into our lives is one of the most challenging undertakings we will face in our lifetime. The benefits, both proven and potential, are great. Human testing is now underway on nanomedicines that have proven one hundred percent effective in fighting certain cancers in rats. Genetically modified goats produce milk containing drugs that can treat diseases as severe as anthrax. But with these modern miracles come grave concerns about the consequences of new technologies. What is life like for genetically modified animals? Should we modify living things to suit our own desires? How will nanoparticles affect our bodies?

Much of the fear that some people have of nanotechnology and biotechnology stems from the fact that there are no quick easy answers to these questions. These are some of the most complex technologies we have ever employed, and their outcomes and interactions are often impossible to predict. Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter at the molecular scale, a level of nature at which quantum phenomena take charge over the Newtonian phenomena we experience at the macro level. Our conventional thinking about materials and effects don’t even work at this level.

Biotechnology can be equally perplexing, as we design and construct living things using DNA, the most fundamental building block of life, as a sculptor uses clay. How can we predict the consequences of something as complex as a new life form?

But if our conventional thinking about new materials and their effects falters faced with the complexity of nanotechnology and biotechnology, what alternative do we have for guiding or even grasping their outcomes? First, regardless of complexity, the use of any technology should be guided by principles. What do we want and why do we want it? Who benefits as a result of its use? What is its effect on the environment? Defining what we want gives us a yardstick by which to measure the success or failure of specific applications of new technologies.

However, once we have defined the what, why, and for whom, we need to bring a new level of open-mindedness to the question of how. In other words, our thinking about how to apply nanotechnology and biotechnology should not follow the patterns of past technological applications. These complex new technologies behave in new ways and raise new questions. Nanoparticles behave differently in the body and the environment than their macroscale counterparts. Genetically modified organisms occupy a strange new territory between living and non-living things.

Often I’ve found it helpful when faced with complexity and uncertainty to focus on relationships rather than entities. For example, looking past the novelty of the gold nanospehers used to treat cancer to consider their interaction with human tissue. Or looking past the mammalian clone whose mother is also its sister to ask what effects their relationship has on their quality of life.

Focusing on qualities and relationships may help us find our way through the new territory opened by nanotechnology and biotechnology better than past frameworks focusing on quantities and entities could. But thinking in this way often clashes with conventional thinking, and with the methods and mindset of many scientists. It is important, however, not only in guiding the outcomes of new technologies, but also in guiding initial experimental work. One of the greatest differences between nano/bio and earlier technologies is that they are design disciplines. Nanotechnology is the design of materials at the molecular level and biotechnology is the design of living things. This makes designers out of nanoscientists and biotechnologists and demands a new way of thinking about these sciences.

Artists are trained and perhaps innately adept at focusing on qualities and relationships. They’re inclined to ask, “What effect am I trying to achieve and why is it important,” before asking “How can I achieve it?” Scientists have been trained more to work from the bottom up, examining materials and aspects of nature to find their applications in society. Artists have learned much from scientists to aid in their pursuit of qualities and relationships. Perhaps with the advent of nanotechnology and biotechnology it is time for all of us to adopt their focus on qualities and relationships and think in new ways about the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

“Are you spontaneously enthusiastic about everyone having everything you can have?” That’s the question posed by R. Buckminster Fuller in Critical Path. Like most people, I would answer with a hearty “yes”. But like most “haves”, I get a little nervous if it looks like providing for others is going to cost me some of my comforts. When that happens, I remind myself that more for today’s “have-nots” doesn’t have to mean less for me.

Rather than taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots, we can achieve equality by making more efficient use of the resources we already have. Our earth and sun provide us with all the resources we need for all of us to live well, if only we are willing and able to steward them properly.

As Fuller observed, “. . . humanity now—for the first time in history—has the realistic opportunity to help evolution do what it is inexorably intent on doing—converting all humanity into one harmonious world family and making that family sustainingly, economically successful.”

I often wonder if nanotechnology and biotechnology could be the keys that open a new world so rich in wisely utilized resources that we can all live well. And apparently, I’m not alone. The week of June 11, 2007, thirteen of the world’s leading scientists gathered in Ilulissat, Greenland for the Kavli Futures Symposium, “The Merging of Bio and Nano: Towards Cyborg Cells.” They felt so strongly that nano and bio will have such a profound effect on humanity that they issued a statement unanimously stating their position in The Ilulissat Statement, “Synthesizing the Future: a Vision for the Convergence of Synthetic Biology and Nanotechnology.” Among their conclusions:

“The construction of arbitrary genetic sequences comparable to the genome size of simple organisms is now possible. Turning these artificial genomes into functioning single-cell factories is probably only a matter of time. On the hardware side of synthetic biology, the train is leaving the station. All we need to do is stoke the engine (by supporting foundational research in synthetic biology technology) and tell the train where to go.”

So, all we need to do is tell the nano-bio train where to go! They make it sound so easy! But many people believe that the tracks these technologies must follow have already been laid, their direction already determined by political or corporate interests.

Bucky Fuller was not one of these people. He believed the critical path technology and humanity will follow will be determined, not by politicians or corporations, but by individuals working together to create a critical mass powerful enough to direct and, as necessary, redirect the train. The discipline required to steer it? Not political or financial clout, but “the design science revolution.”

In other words, technology itself isn’t enough. It must be guided by design principles. The Ilulissat Statement is very much in harmony with ecological design principles, as are Fuller’s principles. That’s the vision of Green Technology Forum as well, to encourage the use of ecological design principles in the application of nanotechnology and biotechnology. It’s a strategy that can benefit business and consumers, and can help us build the kind of world envisioned by luminaries like Fuller and the Ilulissat group.

What sector of the economy uses the most energy, creates the most waste, and produces the most emissions responsible for global climate change? Transportation? Manufacturing?

The answer is buildings, which consume 42% of the nation’s energy, produce 40% of our landfill waste, and create 40% of the emissions responsible for global climate change.

Because buildings are responsible for more energy use, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions than any other sector, you would think they would receive the most attention in our efforts toward energy independence, waste reduction, and fighting global warming. But while biofuels, hybrid cars, and alternative energy make headlines, you won’t hear buildings mentioned in a state of the union address or “An Inconvenient Truth.”

But if buildings are the great unaddressed culprit in energy consumption, waste, and global climate change, they are also the great unaddressed opportunity. Building insulation, for example, is the most cost-effective means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions on the planet.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme’s report, Buildings and Climate Change, “The high investment costs involved, the lack of information on energy-efficient solutions at all levels, as well as the (perceived or real) lack of availability of solutions to specific conditions, are considered as the major barriers to implementing energy efficiency measures in buildings.”

Because of this lack of information and solutions, the abundance of energy-efficient solutions nanotechnology has to offer the building industry, and the fact that buildings are the primary source of energy consumption, waste and carbon emissions in our country, Green Technology Forum is committing to focus on emerging technologies for the building industry, starting with a forthcoming report on Nanotechnology and Green Building.

I’ll be presenting on this vital topic at the upcoming Nanotech 2007 and Cleantech 2007 conferences, and I welcome your input as we explore this urgent and exciting subject.

As I discussed in a recent post at nanotechbuzz on Brian Eno’s talk, Before and After Darwin, nanotechnology can sometimes lead to insights into how nature works. Those lessons can then be applied to the design of new materials. Let’s look at a work in progress where scientists looking at nature at the nanoscale have made some discoveries that could transform whole industries.

Researchers from Northwestern University and the University of California, Santa Barbara have found an optimized adhesive contained in bone, abalone shells and spider silk that could be used in “glues” for nanocomposite materials such as carbon nanotubes and graphene sheets.

Researcher Paul Hansma said these optimized adhesives hold strong elements of materials together and yield just prior to the elements’ breaking points so as to prevent the entire structure from breaking. “Abalone shell and bone can heal themselves due to the weak bonds, such as hydrogen bonds or ionic bonds, that can reform,” he explained to PhysOrg.com.

In a paper published in the journal Nanotechnology, the research team draws these conclusions:

1. Nature is frugal with resources: it uses just a few per cent glue, by weight, to glue together composite materials.

2. Nature does not avoid voids.

3. Nature makes optimized glues with sacrificial bonds and hidden length.

Their observations of nature open the door to new insights into artificial glues and the promise of stronger, lighter, more efficient and economical adhesives. Thanks nature, for providing a valuable lesson, and thanks Dr. Hansma and company for unearthing it.

It couldn’t have been done without the nanotech tools to observe nature at the nanoscale, and I’m always delighted when I see scientists using these new tools to unlock nature’s secrets and show the way to new materials and products.

I hope the developers of new nano-based products will keep nature in mind and that we’ll see, for example, the discoveries described here lead to a new class of adhesives that far exceed current ones like urea formaldehyde, which is classified as a probable human carcinogen by the EPA.

I am looking fifty years down the road, and I don’t like what I see. Genetic engineering has enabled us not only to reengineer ourselves, but our children and our children’s children. Farm animals are designed for maximum efficiency and profit, living creatures turned product. Our foods are altered—even the trees have been bioengineered to fit our needs. As we walk the city streets, merchandise screams at us through brain implants that link us to an internet on steroids, leaving us barely present, lost in a sea of information and artificial stimulus. Almost everything we see, hear and touch has been engineered in some way for human convenience.

Looking back from this future vantage point, I ask myself what went wrong. How did we come to live in a world where we can no longer tell the real from the artificial? Why did we choose to redesign almost everything that nature gave us, and what led us to believe the results would be better?

I can point to a time when it began, when we still had a choice—to restrain our newfound power that biotechnology, nanotechnology and information technology gave us at the start of the twenty-first century; a time when the awesome power of these new technologies went to our heads, and we forged ahead unchecked, intoxicated with the power to create, to redesign according to our own needs the world around us that for so long we had accepted and adapted to.

Now the tables have turned, and instead of adapting to nature—running for shelter from the storm, silently enduring famine and disease—we command nature to adapt to us. Ours is the hand that guides evolution, if evolution still exists. Everything shows traces of the human touch. Nature has ceased to exist.

Turning back the clock to the start of the twenty-first century, I find myself at an intersection. Three roads lie ahead. One, just described, is paved with unchecked ambition and the overconfidence that we can design better than nature. I believe that if we choose this path we will not even recognize ourselves or the world we’ve made when we reach its end. Another road turns back, rejecting any technological advance. It is paved with fear. This road is also a dead end.

Between these two roads lies a third. Along this road, technology is applied according to ecological principles—neither rejected out of hand nor embraced uncritically. This blog is about this middle path—where it leads and how to get there. It is a roadmap for working with nature according to ecological principles, accepting the power of new technologies like biotechnology and nanotechnology but continuously evaluating them to ensure their responsible use.