NanoComposix

NanoComposix is a business who is rapidly growing and is thriving in the nanotechnology sector of business. It makes silver nanospheres, silver nanowires, silver nanoplates, silver silica Coatings, gold nanoparticles, silica spheres of different sizes, and Materials for NanoToxicology.

All of these will be discussed in later posts.

Nanomaterials Company

Researchers worldwide are just beginning to realize that the tiniest particles are the next big thing. Nanomaterials is one of the most promising subcategory of nanotechnology. Nanomaterials Company produces nanomaterials in large quantities. Specifically, they make nanomaterials  that require exact sizes and surfaces that have special characteristics. The accuracy in which this is done is extremely important when it comes to nanotechnologies because the slightest error of fabrication could change the properties of the whole structure. Nanomaterials Company is also a leading manufacturer in nano-powders (will be discussed in a later post).

Chart of future technological markets

As you can see from this chart, the markets for producing and using materials is going up, and is producing billions. It is no surprise then that Nanomaterials Company would want to pursue this area of technology.

This graph also shows that in 2020 there will be a lot of money in the material making market, and so companies will have lots of money to spend on new employees. This is what it is so important for high-school students of this generation be introduced to nanotechnologies. If current high-school students do not learn about nanotechnologies now, all the jobs and money will go to the older generation, and we, as a race, will not be able to improve the technology as quickly, had students been introduced to this topic earlier.

This is just another example of why nanotechnologies and nanomaterials are so important.

Lotus Leaf Nano-Coating

We have all gone to an airport on a frisky December days just before christmas to visit your grandma and have had  the flight delayed several hours because of frozen wings. Just as P2i uses nano-coatings to keep a phone functioning under water, GE attempts use water repellent properties to solve this airport nightmare. GE also attempts to achieve the same results and effects as what P2i uses for phone with a different technique.

Airplane being De-iced

The scientist at GE looked at the Lotus Leaf. They observed that even if the water was muddy around the leaf, the leaf itself still looked clean and glossy. How does it do this?

hair like nano-structures

As the picture says, the lotus leaf is covered with "hair-like nano-structures that prevent [a] liquid from hitting the leaf surface"

This in turn projects the property of being hydrophobic, or water repellent.

What the scientist hope to do is to make a replica of this, and use the resulting nano-coating as a solution to keep airplane wings from freezing.

Lotus leaf effect

If the scientist succeed in their quest to make and anti-freeze nano-coating, and if they are able to mass produce it, we may never again have to wait in airplane for it to be de-iced.
(GE Central Research Laboratory)

Waterproofing with Nano-coatings

With Hurricane Sandy just rapping up in New Jersey and New York, a lot of people have lost power, water and may have even been flooded. The classic pitfall for all people in this situation with electronics; to drop your brand new IPhone five into a puddle. P2i attempts to solve this problem with nanotechnologies by making a water repellent nano-coating.

Note that they did not say that their product is water resistant or waterproof. They just say that it is water repellent, or rather, that it makes other's product water repellent. The difference between these three are subtle, but still present. Something that is waterproof probably does not exist, because that would suggest that it a technology would survive under even the highest of pressures. This is obviously not the case. A more correct term is water resistant, which is what has become common in watches.

Being water repellent is completely different. instead of working with water or keeping it out, being water repellent is making the water 'go away'.

Figure 1: Why water sticks to itself diagram

Water has a property of coherence, (the state of cohering or sticking together, figure 1) This property is what creates the curve in water when you look at it in a cup from the side (figure 2). To be clear, figure one is not the only type of meniscus. There are both concave and convex menisci. For example in figure 2, there is both a concave and convex example. The water is concave (because it turns inwards) and mercury is convex (it turns outwards). This is decided by how much the liquid in a container sticks to itself and how well the liquid sticks to the material of the container. If the substance sticks more to itself than the container (because the surface energy of the container is higher than that of the water), then it is convex like mercury, otherwise, it is concave.

Figure 2: curvature in water because of coherence as well
as a meniscus

Figure 3: comparing a concave and convex menisci

This is the fundamental property behind P2i and describes a water repellent material. To be water repellent, water needs to ball up and roll off of a material when it is splashes on the surface of something. This requires that the surface energy be lower than waters. P2i does just that, it lowers the surface energy of a material, making water roll off of it like skies sliding down a snow capped mountain.

(source)(source)(source)(source)(source) (These are all on P2i's website)

This is a video of how they lower the surface area of a technology:

P2i is not only interested in saving phones in technologies, but also for other, more common things. They are water repelling  footwear, hats, gloves, life sciences, flitration, energy. It is also used to help the military and institutions.
(source)