Impact of nanotechnology in energy and environment. Socioeconomic and ethical issues in nanotechnology

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Impact of nanotechnology in energy and environment. Socioeconomic and ethical issues in nanotechnology

Energy and Environment

Nanotechnology is fundamental over the next 50 years to providing sufficient energy for a growing world and to protecting the environment in which we live. There is an energy/environmental storm gathering. Under all practical solutions nanotechnology will play a critical role in any successful outcome.

The most advanced nanotechnology projects related to energy are:

1.   Storage

2.   Conversion

3.   Manufacturing improvements by reducing materials and process rates

4.   Energy saving e.g. by better thermal insulation and enhanced renewable energy sources.

Nanotechnology is having on renewal energies, from solar technology, to nano-catalysis, fuel cells and hydrogen technology. Thus using nanotechnology more clean and less expensive ways for energy production have been found.  Carbon nanotube fuel cells are being used to store hydrogen. These are the environmentally friendly form of energy. This has the potential to power cars.  Research on photovoltaic is being done to make them cheap, light weight and more efficient.  Nanotechnology can contribute to the further reduction of combustion engine pollutants by nanoporous filters, which can clean the exhaust mechanically, by catalytic converters based on nanoscale noble metal particles or by catalytic coatings on cylinder walls and catalytic nanoparticles as additive for fuels.

 Nanotechnology for environmental safety

          A strong influence of nano-chemistry on waste water treatment, air purification and energy storage devices is to be expected. The scientists of Banaras Hindu University have devised a simple method to produce carbon nanotube filters that efficiently remove micro to nano-scale contaminants from water and heavy hydrocarbons from petroleum. The filters are carbon cylinders several centimeters long and 1-2 cm wide with walls just one-third to one-half of a mm thick. They are produced by spraying benzene into a tube shaped quartz mold and heating the mold to 900^oC. The nanotube makes the filters strong, reusable, and heat resistant and they can be cleansed easily for reuse. They can remove 25 nano-meter sized polio viruses from waster as well as larger pathogens such as Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aurous bacteria. If it is used widely, we shall minimize the water borne diseases. Magnetic nanoparticles offer an effective and reliable method to remove heavy metal contaminations from waste water by making use of magnetic separation technique. Nanotechnology can introduce new methods for the treatments and purification of water from pollutants, as well as new techniques for wastewater management and water desalinization.

Soil Clean-Up Using Iron Nanoparticles A number of approaches are being developed to apply nanotechnology and particularly nanoparticles to cleaning up soils contaminated with heavy metals and PCBs. Injecting nano-scale iron into a contaminated site along with the groundwater and decontaminate en route, which is much less expensive than digging out the soil to treat it (The zerovalent metal (usually granular iron) is the bulk reducing agent in these systems. However, corrosion of iron metal yields Fe²⁺ and hydrogen, both of which are possible reducing agents for contaminants such as chlorinated solvents like PCB). The nano-scale iron will remain active in the soil for six to eight weeks, after which time it dissolves in the groundwater and becomes indistinguishable from naturally occurring iron. 

Nanotechnology can improve our understanding of the biology of different crops and thus potentially enhance yields or nutritional values. In addition, it can offer routes to added value crops or environmental remediation. Particle farming is one such example, which yields nanoparticles for industrial use by growing plants in defined soils. For example, research has shown that alfalfa plants grown in gold rich soil, absorb gold nanoparticles through their roots and accumulate these in their tissues. The gold nanoparticles can be mechanically separated from the plant tissue following harvest.

A single nano-sensor can have thousands of nano-particles that can detect the presence of any number and kind of bacteria and pathogens rapidly and accurately.

Much of the microbial food safety problems arise due to contamination of food processing equipment with microorganisms. Earlier, it was difficult to quantify such contamination but nowadays it can be easily quantified with the aid of nanotools such as Atomic Force Microscope.

Improved biosensor technology may be used to detect gases present in packaged foods as a measure of integrity of the packaging material, compounds released during food spoilage or deterioration, and the presence of pathogens or toxins in foods. Such sensors could be incorporated into packaging to alert consumers, producers, and distributors as to the safety status of foods or could be used to detect pathogens in processing plants.

The gas sensors of electronic nose (e-nose) are composed of nanoparticles (e.g. Zinc oxide nanowires) whose resistance changes when a certain gas is made to pass over it. This change in resistance generates a change in electrical signal that forms the fingerprint for gas detection. This finger print pattern derived from the sensor is used to determining the type, quality and quantity of the odor being detected. The advantage of using nanoparticles is that they have improved surface area for better gas adsorption.

Socio economic issues

Nanotechnology is an emerging and rapidly growing field of applied sciences offering enormous commercial benefits. Nanotechnology is now used in a variety of applications that range from nano-structured magnetic multi layers in computer hard-disk (HD) technology to UV absorbing nano-particles in sunscreens and electronically conductive plastics in automotive industry. Effective exploitation of nanotechnology demands fabrication, manipulation, measurements and environment control, at a scale of sub-100 nm.

The exponential growth of global investment in nanotechnology research closely coincides with the number of patents relating to nano-products.

Ethical Issues

• It has to potential to eliminate other ethical issues (e.g. assembling beef instead of slaughtering cows, constructing cells rather than getting them from reproduction, etc...)
• May lead to undetectable surveillance, Right to Privacy could be jeopardized

1. Micro - social

          Nanotechnology researchers have an ethical responsibility to not do anything that they know (or should know) will undermine or pose a risk to safety in the nanotechnology  lab.

a. New nanomaterials

          Researchers have an ethical responsibility to always take appropriate precautions when working with elements new at the nanoscale. Similarly, product designers have an ethical responsibility to confirm that any nanomaterial they propose to use in a product has been shown to be safe, both individually and in combination with other elements.

b. Established lab procedures

          Researchers have an ethical responsibility to not take prohibited shortcuts. Suppose a NT researcher becomes aware that a fellow lab member is taking prohibited shortcuts in her/his work, NT researchers have an ethical responsibility to report such behavior to laboratory managers.

c. Laboratory culture

          Top managers in a lab have an ethical responsibility to actively promote a culture of safety in their facility. Researchers in NT labs have the ethical responsibility to help train and encourage newcomer researchers to do things in ways consistent with maintaining a strong safety culture in the lab.

d. Other kinds of ethical issues

          Besides safety, other kinds of ethical issues can and do arise in nanotechnology labs. Among them are intellectual property disputes -- who is entitled to what degree of credit for a particular idea, discovery, or innovation? -- and disputes over the integrity of the data cited to justify a technical claim. Such ethical issues are addressed in the literature on “research ethics.” The key point here is that such disputes can properly be evaluated in terms of ethics, for they are usually linkable to harm or justice. For example, fraudulent data can result in physical or financial harm to competitors, institutions, or users of materials or devices whose design properties depend on that data. Similarly, giving too little or too much credit in a publication to co-workers and to scholars whose ideas contributed to one’s research work raises ethical issues of justice and intellectual property rights.

2. Meso-social

1. Hype : Hyping is ethically irresponsible for two reasons. Good science could go unfunded if a hyped field or project is funded or over funded, and hype -- in the form of exaggerated claims about research payoffs to the public -- could erode public willingness to continue or increase funding for science and engineering. In short, nanotechnology researchers have an ethical responsibility to avoid hype.
2. Distortion: A noteworthy ethical issue involved in media coverage of science and engineering is distortion. nanotechnology researchers have an ethical responsibility to not legitimize distorted media coverage of scientific or engineering developments by participating in programs that crudely simplify or sensationalize their costs, benefits, risks, problems, and time frames.

3. Macro-social

          The “macro-social domain” refers to society at large. NT researchers have an ethical responsibility to society at large to do the best work they can to generate reliable new scientific knowledge, materials, devices, and systems. If a NT researcher has reason to believe that her/his work (or work in her/his field) will be applied to society so as to create a risk of significant harm to humans, he or she has an ethical responsibility to alert appropriate authorities about the potential danger.

Societal Issues

          Nanotechnology is forecast to underpin “the next industrial revolution”, leading to far-reaching changes in social, economic and ecological relations. Yet whereas the health and environment risks posed by nanomaterials are attracting an increasing amount of attention, there is still little discussion of the potential for nanotechnology to result in large-scale social disruption.

          Nano optimists see nanotechnology delivering environmentally benign material abundance for all by providing universal clean water supplies; atomically engineered food and crops resulting in greater agricultural productivity with less labour requirements; nutritionally enhanced interactive ‘smart’ foods; cheap and powerful energy generation; clean and highly efficient manufacturing; radically improved formulation of medicine; and increased human performance through convergent technologies.

          Nano ethicists posit that such a transformative technology could exacerbate the divisions of rich and poor – the so-called “nano divide.” However nanotechnology makes the production of technology, e.g. computers, cellular phones, health technology etcetera, cheaper and therefore accessible to the poor.

          Those concerned with the negative implications of nanotechnology suggest that it will simply exacerbate problems stemming from existing socio-economic inequity and unequal distributions of power, creating greater inequities between rich and poor through an inevitable nano-divide (the gap between those who control the new nanotechnologies and those whose products, services or labour are displaced by them). Analysts suggest the possibility that nanotechnology has the potential to destabilize international relations through a nano arms race and the increased potential for bioweaponry; thus, providing the tools for ubiquitous surveillance with significant implications for civil liberties. Also, many critics believe it might break down the barriers between life and non-life through nanobiotechnology, redefining even what it means to be human.

Possible military applications

          Societal risks from the use of nanotechnology have also been raised. On the instrumental level, these include the possibility of military applications of nanotechnology (for instance, as in implants and other means for soldier enhancement like those being developed at the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies as well as enhanced surveillance capabilities through nano-sensors. There is also the possibility of nanotechnology being used to develop chemical weapons and because they will be able to develop the chemicals from the atom scale up, critics fear that chemical weapons developed from nano particles will be more dangerous than present chemical weapons.

Intellectual property issues

          On the structural level, critics of nanotechnology point to a new world of ownership and corporate control opened up by nanotechnology. The claim is that, just as biotechnology's ability to manipulate genes went hand in hand with the patenting of life, so too nanotechnology's ability to manipulate molecules has led to the patenting of matter. The last few years has seen a gold rush to claim patents at the nanoscale. Over 800 nano-related patents were granted in 2003, and the numbers are increasing year to year. Corporations are already taking out broad-ranging patents on nanoscale discoveries and inventions. For example, two corporations, NEC and IBM, hold the basic patents on carbon nanotubes, one of the current cornerstones of nanotechnology. Carbon nanotubes have a wide range of uses, and look set to become crucial to several industries from electronics and computers, to strengthened materials to drug delivery and diagnostics. Carbon nanotubes are poised to become a major traded commodity with the potential to replace major conventional raw materials. However, as their use expands, anyone seeking to (legally) manufacture or sell carbon nanotubes, no matter what the application, must first buy a license from NEC or IBM.