TEXAS COMPANY PEDDLES METAL AT NANOSCALE FOR VARIETY OF USES
By Elizabeth Goldman Austin American-Statesman Oct. 2, 2001
- A jar full of nanoalumina looks like talcum powder. It swirls like it's liquid, with clouds of the material taking their time to settle.
What becomes visible in the jar is clusters of the metal.
Each particle is hundreds of times smaller than the diameter of a human hair - much too small to see individually.
The alumina, created by an Austin company called Nanotechnologies Inc., could become a super-hard coating on eyeglasses, each particle so small that it creates a clear coating as hard as ceramic.
Using a process initially developed at the University of Texas by Nanotechnologies founder Dennis Wilson, the company is making nano-size particles of a variety of metals, with applications ranging from lead-free solders to inkjet printing of customized circuit boards.
Each particle of nanoalumina is about 15 nanometers across, a width of only 40 atoms. A human hair is about 10,000 nanometers in diameter, while a single particle of smoke - which can't be seen by the naked eye -- is 1,000 nanometers.
Turning metals such as aluminum, silver and titanium into nanomaterials opens a huge number of new applications.
Any number of companies are racing to get involved in the broader field of nanotechnology as its reputation as the next big revolution in technology grows. Wilson thinks his patented process gives the Austin startup a leg up.
What makes Nanotechnologies' process different from other methods of making nanomaterials is the control the scientists have over their work. Nanoparticles are not that difficult to make, but their size is very hard to control.
The process of creating nanomaterials involves mixing metal plasma and gas in a reactor at very high temperature and high pressure.
"We in a sense have a controlled lightning bolt in our reactor," Wilson said. "You take metal at room temperature. It's sitting there minding its own business, and within a few thousandths of a second, we take it to 50,000 Kelvin and quench it. We essentially vaporize it."
During the process, the metal, in plasma form, reacts with the gas, creating nanoparticles that then start to grow. The sudden cooling stops the growth, and by having control over how quickly the mixture is cooled, Nanotechnologies maintains control over the final size of the particles.
Once they solved the problem of size, Wilson and his colleagues had to figure out how to produce enough of the materials to make it commercially viable. Their recent move to space five times as large as their original, cramped North Austin office should help production ramp up.
But where a software company might have bugs to fix, the setbacks in building reactors and making nanomaterials are a little different.
"Things break and literally explode," Wilson noted.
Wilson founded the company in 1999 after the university released the technology to him for free. The company received $4 million in first-round funding in April 2000 from Convergent Investors and Crossroads Systems Inc. founders Brian Smith and Dale Quisenberry.
Along with the clear ceramic coating, Nanotechnologies is working to create nanosilver for at least two applications: a nontoxic replacement for lead-based solders and an ink that would allow for the printing of one-of-a-kind circuit boards on a regular desktop printer.
The Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico is buying nanosilver to explore printing technology for military applications - it could be used to create unique weapons that can't be duplicated, taking secrecy to a new level and keeping U.S. weapons technology out of the hands of terrorists or rogue nations.
Bridgewater, N.J.-based National Starch & Chemical Co. has plans to use the silver in solders. Other customers include Tyco Electronics and 3M Corp., which are considering the use of nanosilver in a paste that conducts electricity, which would be used on circuit boards.
Denny Hamill -- a solid-state physicist, 30-year veteran of 3M and chairman of MCC who came out of retirement to be Wilson's vice president of marketing -- is confident that nanotechnology will truly revolutionize product development.
"Every 20 years, there's some big breakthrough that's going to drive new products," he said. "Plastics was the first wave, then composites. Everyone feels nanoparticles is that next breakthrough."
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