Money is bigger than nano particles

In recent months, about a dozen companies in the field of nanotechnology have begun to sell innovative products, with some of them even surpassing the million dollar mark in sales * The NES Consortium, which will unite industry companies and academic researchers, is intended for the joint development of leading applications using nanotubes

The article was published in Industries magazine

For the past decade, the field of nanotechnology has sounded like science fiction. in a series of interviews we conducted for Nanotechnology Conference 2009 to be held in March in Jerusalem, It turns out that components that can barely be seen under an electron microscope are used as a cornerstone for an entire industry, and there are even already several Israeli companies that specialize in this and sell for millions, and there is also a new association for magnets called NES Nanotubes Empowerment Solutions)) that will deal with the development of nanotubes that will form the basis of the industry for the next decade or two , and the most surprising thing is that all these nanoscale materials are integrated, among other things, in the traditional chemical industries, and in fact improve existing products at this stage, and another important note - currently it is a combination of passive nanoscale materials in the industry, but the future also holds nanoscale machines, which will enable the development of products that cannot even be described .

Nanotechnology is an umbrella term for a very broad family of applications and control of materials ranging in size from one nanometer (billionth of a meter) to one hundred nanometers. The number of different fields is very wide and it contains among other things: applied physics, chemistry of materials and polymers, supramolecular chemistry and more. In fact, in the future we will be able to build any macroscopic application in nanometer dimensions and we will be able to obtain nanometrically designed materials - stronger, lighter, harder, self-repairing, and safer and self-replicating; nanoelectronics, electro-optics, and magnetism; Nanomedicine: medical treatment and diagnostics; Nanoscale processes related to the quality of the environment (eg waste decomposition); energy conservation and storage; tiny spaceships for research and space exploitation; biological sensors for detecting infectious diseases and biological threats; applications for safe and cheap transport; Applications of nanotechnology for national security.

Rafi Koriat, CEO of Coral Business Ltd. Hapoel Ben-Shehar within the framework of INNI, who heads the emerging consortium, says that in recent years in Israeli academia, about 300 groundbreaking studies have been created, and that no less than 70 companies operate in the field (of which 12 have started selling , some of them even in millions of dollars).

According to him, the background in the field of nanotechnology in Israel is deepening. Its small size and financial limitations pose serious challenges to Israel, but leaders in academia, government and the business sector have recognized nanotechnology as a platform to ensure Israel's continued excellence in research and development for decades to come. "Nanotechnology is a natural step for the development of the Israeli economy. In fact, our small size and the possibility to focus investments, a small number of commercial barriers, the possibility of rapid construction of prototypes and the examination of the systems and a high level of quality assurance. Israel's success in the high-tech fields hints at what awaits us in the age of nanotechnology.

"The reason that the field as a whole is becoming hot is due to it being a strategic field - when you move from the field of micro (e.g. microelectronics) to nano, the field becomes attractive in several respects. Nanotechnology enables the creation of new materials with special properties that are able to solve problems that the micro industry could not deal with. It also uses a reverse construction method. Instead of building things from the top down, build from the bottom up - start with nano components and get to the big things. There are several areas that are groundbreaking in this industry, the main part of which is the issue of materials. Materials of all kinds, in which they look for properties of strength, low weight, ballistic protection - toughness. Materials that help the biotechnology and biomedicine industry, fields in the field of nanoelectronics - semiconductors that go down to nano sizes and are able to have a greater density of components on a surface - more memory, more processors because there are many more circuits per unit area. Another field where nanotechnology can be enjoyed is the field of energy in general, and in particular solar energy, energy generation, and an important field is the field of the environment - water purification, water distillation, everything related to the environment.

The forecast is that the field of nanotechnology will grow economically and within 5-7 years it will produce products worth 1-2 billion dollars and from there the world is big. The next five years will be very critical and for a country like the State of Israel to be a pioneer and also to be a significant player, we need to invest at the national, research and industrial level as well.

Several years ago, a number of senior people founded an organization to encourage the issue of nanotechnology in Israel called INNI - Israel National Nanotechnology Initiative. Among the founders of the association can be named Dr. Dan Maidan who founded Applied Materials, Prof. Yehoshua Yurtner, Dan Wilensky and others who work together with the ministry of the chief scientist to advance the subject, including help in raising and directing funds to this field.

In order to promote the field from a financial point of view and not only from a research point of view, a triangular model was built - the triangular model means that if a donor gives an amount of X and the academy puts an identical amount into the fund, the state will supplement with an additional X so that we receive a special allocation that leverages the investment of each of the parties 3 times. An example of this was The establishment of the nanotechnology center at the Technion - they managed to bring in a donor, the Russell Berry Foundation. The Technion contributed the same amount and the state contributed the same amount. The total amount allocated for the development of the nano activity in Israel based on the triple model is 250 million dollars over 5 years. This money is intended for the encouragement and promotion of the nanotechnology industry in Israel - the research, production and further development of this important industry."

Rafi Koriat "Within INNI, my role is to promote collaborations between academia and industry - I go through all the nanotechnology centers in Israel and find academic fields for which an industrial partner can be found among one of the companies. If that industrial partner is in the field where the research is concerned, and wants to leverage the fruits of the research, I match the two. The academy benefits from this because it takes basic research and transfers it to an industrial application (for which you will receive royalties) and the industry will receive leading research and turn it into a product.

"Following my work between the researchers and the industry, it became clear that an important area within the framework of nanotechnology is the need to prepare a basic technological infrastructure that will be used by academia and industry alike. An important part of this infrastructure is the field of nanotubes, which is a cross-border field in nanotechnology. In collaboration with Prof. Yachin Cohen from the Faculty of Chemical Engineering at the Technion and with the encouragement of Dan Wilensky, I decided to take on the establishment of the association within Magnet. Nanotubes are nanotubes that by adding the nanotubes to other materials can change the properties of the same material and get a new material with a special structure and properties. You can harden plastic, put it in metal and reduce weight significantly, put it in a metallic material and create transparency. This is definitely a basic technology that if we solve the barriers and technological bottlenecks we will be able to produce new materials with 10 times improved properties than the materials that exist today."

As part of the association, about 15 potential companies and about 25 researchers from higher education institutions are currently organizing in order to solve the technological problems of using nanotubes for wide applications, including applications of reducing the weight of materials, increasing strength, ballistic protection, electro-optical properties - transparency or turbidity, properties of Conductivity or semi-conductivity through the combination of nanotubes in a certain matrix with a certain material and more. This progress will give a leap forward to an entire industry."

"The association's vision is the development of essential technologies that enable the use of carbon nanotubes and others for selected and ground-breaking applications, leading to an Israeli leap forward in terms of features and performance. The goals of the association are: to identify the fields and applications that rely on nanotube technology and have a reasonable chance of leading industrial application; Locating and overcoming the technological barriers and bottlenecks on the way to relevant applications; Defining the global raw material sources and creating a joint venture for regular supply; Academia-industry cooperation: defining leading research programs, demonstrations and working groups to reduce and solve the technological gaps; Defining standards for safety and appropriate regulation for introducing the technology to industrial applications and joining international standardization committees in the field of nanotubes

Keep the engine

One of the companies whose name has been associated with nanotechnology in recent years is the Israeli start-up company ApNano Materials, which develops coatings and lubricants (NANOLUB) based on nanometric particles. Dr. Menachem Ganot, the CEO of the company, estimates that the market for lubricants reaches about 40 billion dollars, and the volume of sales of Apanano itself is expected, according to him, to reach hundreds of millions of dollars.

In a conversation with "Industries" Dr. Gnot says: "We already have a product that is sold at Sonol gas stations - an additive for engine oils and soon another product will also be sold - an additive for relay oils (known by their popular name Gire). In addition, the company intensively sells its dry lubricants based on nanotechnology as independent materials, and as an improvement of existing 'greases' and oils.

The company, which has offices in Rehovot, raised 3.5 million dollars from European investors and is turning to new areas - medical coatings and protective equipment. The latest fundraising was carried out at a value of 38 million dollars after the money. So far the company has raised $12.5 million. "We have completed an increase in production. We sell all over the world materials used to reduce friction for various industries. My message is that nanotechnology is not just something nice to show off that our president, Shimon Peres, is doing, but as a practical industrial field that has reached the ground and is now being sold at any price."

"It turns out that the new material is sold even without proper advertising." Gnut added. "One article in the latest news was enough to send the people who wanted to keep their engine to Sonol stations and the product was sold in an unusual way. Nanotechnology in the world is a hype that we don't treat it as a hype but as a product that happens to be based on nanotechnology, but a product that works like any chemical. Because it is nano, it is a material that definitely fits its role of reducing friction and wear because it is able to fit between the smallest parts of the machines. Hundreds of billions of dollars are wasted in the world because of unnecessary friction. If we improve engine performance by a few percent, we will achieve an improvement in fuel consumption, reduce pollutant emissions and improve the ecological balance."

Ganot was part of Professor Rashef Tana's research group that operated at the Weizmann Institute, and based on research he conducted in those days with the material tungsten disulfide (for growing solar cells), he discovered new chemical structures - fullerenes. Research by Prof. Reshef in 1996 revealed that the fullerenes can be used as a lubricant. The material is based on nanometric (millionth of a millimeter) shaped spherical particles, which perform the lubrication action through rolling, similar to spherical bearings. Our modus operandi is to this day an incarnation of that research, which makes the Weizmann Institute one of the partners in the company through the Yada Research and Development Company (the commercial arm of the Weizmann Institute), the financial investors in the company are the venture capital fund Newton Technology Ventures, and partners It also includes AYYT, the commercial arm of the Technological Academic Institute in Holon, Accelerate and private European investors.

According to Gnot, ApNano Materials recently achieved a global breakthrough in the production of nanotubes. The breakthrough makes it possible to produce these particles in commercial quantities. The particles are made of the material tungsten disulfide.

The special process first developed at the Weizmann Institute and perfected by the company allows the production of tungsten disulfide nanotubes, which are the best "shock absorbers" in the world. Because of this feature, the new material is ideal for the production of personal protective vests, vehicle armor, shields, helmets, car bumpers and a variety of Additional protective measures. The unique particles are 4-5 times stronger than steel and 6 times stronger than Kevlar, one of the most popular materials today for the production of protective vests.

The field of synthesis of nanotubes made of tungsten disulfide and other inorganic materials has been studied in the last 16 years by Prof. Rashef Tana from the Weizmann Institute when production was in tiny quantities. Based on the knowledge gained at the Weizmann Institute, ApNano Materials built the unique production facility, located in Yavne, which enables the production of the particles in commercial quantities. Aharon Feuerstein, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Apnano Materials, points out that the thin tube-like particles open up new markets for the company with the potential of considerable income.

fuses per kilo (lambda)

Moshe Oron, Chief Scientist at Kilollambda, says that in recent years a huge amount of money has been invested in research into nanotechnology in Israel. Many centers were established, both at the Technion and at Tel Aviv University, also in Jerusalem, and a lot of money was invested in nanotechnology research with the knowledge or thought that this field, which is completely new, would solve many intractable problems. From those studies, there are still no large factories that produce, but there are beginnings.

"One of the companies where there is a beginning is Kilolambada. The company was born in 2001 and its intention at that time was to produce components for the communications industry that are based on nanotechnology. As we all remember, following the bursting of the Internet bubble, a crisis occurred. Therefore, we made some changes because they brought us to a basket of products in the field of communications and fibers as well as in other fields, and all of them in nano technologies."

"At Kilolambda we invented two accessories for fiber communication - one of them is the passive optical fuse that stops the transmission of light in the fiber when the power is too great and may endanger the fiber. And the second product is the optical limiter - which limits the amount of light passing through the fiber to a certain amount. These two components are distributed worldwide with the help of a collaboration we have with two large companies - Newport which distributes us in laboratories and the other Molex - a large supplier of optical fibers which sells our product as part of the total package it offers to its customers. In addition, the company has systems for limiting light in optical observation facilities, especially to protect against random laser hits."

"Kilolambda joins the NES Consortium with the aim of praising its nanoscale structures with the help of nanotubes." Oron concludes.

break the horns

In Uri Zohar's song Patents (lyrics: Chaim Hefer) it is told about a shutter: "It opens with the turn of the handle to the right; He rides on a wheel and rides on a sleep; This shutter has three types of silhouettes; This shutter breaks ultraviolet rays; Stop breaking the horns."

The Hanita coating company currently sells the modern version of this shutter - a coating for glass made of a nanometric metallic material, which transmits the sunlight but repels some of the heat and light. The material itself is marketed in the form of sheets and tapes that are pasted on the windows of cars and houses.

Yoash Karmi, a senior scientist at Hanita Zipoi, and a physicist by profession, tells Industries: "Because of their small size, one of the interesting properties of nanotechnology particles is that they do not scatter light, the light bypasses them. We use this property to paint the sheets that are put on windows in all kinds of colors. The colors come from the nano particles, but the special thing about this is in contrast to larger particles. If we put larger particles the light would turn milky due to dispersion of pigments. When it's nano, you get the color, but the sheet or coating doesn't turn milky, but remains transparent."

The non-nanometric alternative, i.e. the current situation in the market, is that the sheets are dyed with organic-based paints. These materials fade in the sun very quickly and lose their color or change it. The nano particles are particles of very stable compounds, so the color does not fade. All that is needed is to paint the window films with the nanometric colors that do not fade."

Is this a product under development?

Karmi: "It is already a commercial product, we produce it in large quantities and target it to other markets. As part of the consortium, the field we deal with is completely transparent electrically conductive coatings. This way we can build transparent and flexible electrodes. Transparent electrodes of this type are used, for example, in LCD screens, in this case on glass panels. But there are many uses in electronic devices, and in fact anywhere where a large conductive and transparent area is needed. Among other things, we can combine between the layers of the vehicle's windshield an electric wire for heating and defrosting steam and ice (Transparent Heaters). Since this is the front window, it must remain transparent, and only nanotechnology can ensure this.

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