Nick Dudley, a third-year law student at the University of Minnesota Law School, has prepared an interesting primer on nanotechnology and the likely effects on products liability litigation and risk management. This is Part 1 of 4.
What is Nanotech?
Nanotechnology refers to the science of manipulating particles at the nano scale. In other words nanotech is smaller than 100 nanometers, and a nanometer is one billionth of a meter. A nanometer is five times the size of a typical atom. Nanotechnology refers to a wide range of processes, manufacturing techniques, and potential applications; each of which is promoted by various government laboratories and corporate entities. So, defining nanotech is a bit like defining religion. No one organization has hegemony over the field. No one process defines the essence of the field.
How is Nanotech Different than Traditional Technology?
Nanotech can resemble traditional top-down engineering. Top-down engineering requires that the builder take something large and refine it into something small. Trees are turned into desks or pencils. Likewise, relatively large particles are pared down into nano-filaments. But nanotech can also be produced using bottom-up engineering. A bottom-up process can take something incredibly small (namely individual atoms) and make something much larger (but still imperceptibly small). It is like using atoms as Lego building blocks. Bottom-up engineering can be self replicating and is much more efficient.
Scientists and engineers make nanomaterials out of common chemical substances. However, these “everyday” substances behave remarkably different at nanosizes. Thus, carbon, an abundant and common element (indeed a building block of life itself) may be unremarkable when it is the size of a plant, or a single ash, or even in a molecule of carbon dioxide. But, at nanoscales, carbon can be engineered into a tube that is stronger for its size than any other substance humanity has discovered. Properties of materials are altered in strange and useful ways at the nanolevel because of a high surface area to mass ratio. According to Albert Lin, the “mechanical, electrical, optical, catalytic, and/or biological activity of a substance” is significantly enhanced.
Most nanotechnology can fit into one of three classifications: nanoscale engineering, productive nanosystems, and self-replicating nanotech. Nanoscale engineering is the most basic of the three types. It is used to create very small nanoparticles that can be free floating to create lubrication (think miniature ball bearings) or integral structures (carbon nanotubes). Productive nanosystems can be used as delivery mechanisms for pharmaceuticals or to make other nanostructures. That technology is in a developmental stage and in limited commercial application. Finally, replicating systems, which represent miniature versions of lathes and mills, could be used to self-replicate nanosystems and structures as needed. Replicating systems are still more theoretical than practical.
What will be the Economic Impact of Nanotechnology?
Nanotech is already on the market in a number of items including, stain resistant pants, sunscreen, pharmaceuticals, paints, electronics, tires, foods, and cosmetics. The technology is already fairly pervasive, but frankly the world has not seen anything yet. It is not hyperbole to call nanotechnology the foundation of the next industrial revolution. The United States government alone has spent roughly $1 billion on nanotechnology research and development, with private U.S. companies spending another $2 billion. The rest of the world has spent $9 billion. That may seem like a lofty investment, but it pales in comparison to the conservative projected return of $1 trillion. At least one firm has projected that by 2014, nanotech will account for $2.4 trillion in sales. As overwhelming as the projections seem at first blush, it is relatively easy to see how nanotech could account for such lofty numbers. Few technologies have the ability to touch every sector of an economy; but nanotech truly does, because it is a process as much as a product. Unfortunately, the potentially overwhelming benefits and pervasiveness of nanotechnology has led to a boom mentality among researchers. Very few people or institutions have been willing to pay the necessary cost of researching negative effects. Only 4% of the U.S. budget on nano research is directed towards potential health and environmental concerns. That has set the stage for a potential calamity.
- Nick Dudley
Part 2 will examine some of the real and potential dangers of nanotechnology.
Sources:
-The Royal Society & The Royal Academy of Engineering, Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties 5 (2004)
-Karluss Thomas & Philip Sayre, Research Strategies for Safety Evaluation of Nanomaterials, Part I: Evaluating the Human Health Implications of Exposure to Nanoscale Materials, 87 TOXICOLOGICAL SCI. 316, 316 (2005).
-The Royal Society & The Royal Academy of Engineering, Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties 5 (2004)
-Lin, Albert, Size Matters: Regulating Nanotechnology. Harvard Environmental Law Review, Vol. 31, 2007; at 5. UC Davis Legal Studies Research Paper No. 90. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=934635
-President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, The National Nanotechnology Initiative at Five Years: Assessments and Recommendations of the National Nanotechnology Advisory Panel 1(2005)
-WASHINGTON POST, July 30, 2004, at A2
-Susan R. Morrisey, Nanotech’s Safety Risks, CHEM. & ENG’G NEWS, Dec. 5, 2005, at 46-48