Barbara KARN
US EPA/Office of Research and Development detailed to Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars/Emerging Nanotechnologies Project
Can nanotechnology be green?
When we talk about research and development in nanotechnology, it is indispensable to look to its impact on human health and environment. Dr. Karn led a research grant program for nanotechnology at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). She represented EPA on the Subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology (NSET), National Science and Technology Council. She is currently working for The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and focusing on "green nanotechnology."
Dr. Karn visited Japan to attend "The Second International Dialogue on Responsible Research and Development of Nanotechnology" in Tokyo in June 2006. We had an opportunity to have her lecture on green nanotechnology at National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) in Tsukuba. This is her first visit to Japan and the first lecture in Japan.
Content
#1 What is the National Nanotechnology Initiative?
#2 NNI activities regarding environment, health,
safety
#3 EPA, its Research and other Nanotechnology
activities
#4 Why should we do Green Nanotechnology?
#5 What is Green Nanotechnology? (Wilson
Center program)
The following is part of her lecture, and she kindly permitted us to put it on our website.
Please visit the following website for a full record of her lecture.
What is Green Nanotechnology? (Wilson Center program)
What is green nanotechnology? This is what I have been focusing on at the Wilson Center.
[Slide 34]
Green nano has two goals. First of all, we make nanomaterials and their products without harming the environment or human health. And then we produce nanoproducts that provide solutions to environmental challenges. [Slide 35]
My framework for green nanotechnology looks at two aspects. One is the production, and the other is the product. In production, we are making the nanomaterials and the products that contain those nanomaterials and nano scale systems. And we make sure that in the production, there’s no harm to the environment. In the products, we build products that help the environment. So in production, we want to make our stuff / the nano stuff in a green manner. And we want to use nanotechnology to make our current productions greener. What we mean by this is that we use the rules we already know in upfront green chemistry or green engineer
design for the environment, or using smart business practices. We can also use nanoscale membranes and nanoscale catalysts to help make our current production a lot better. All of this has a pollution prevention emphasis.
When we talk about products, we talk about both direct and indirect environmental applications. Directly, we have those materials that clean up sites. They remediate. We have sensors as direct applications. Indirectly, we help the environment by saving energy or reducing waste. So this framework fits in with the way we should be doing things more proactively. What kind of policies can we put in place at least to encourage the development of green products and manufacturing techniques? “Right green” is designing it right from the start. [Slide 36]
There are the twelve principles of green chemistry. You should have them memorized if you work in a laboratory. At least try to follow them, so you can use your scientific background to make things cleaner.
“12 Principles of Green Chemistry”
- Prevention
- Atom Economy
- Less Hazardous Chemical Syntheses
- Designing Safer Chemicals
- Safer Solvents and Auxiliaries
- Design for Energy Efficiency
- Use of Renewable Feedstocks
- Reduce Derivatives
- Catalysis
- Design for Degradation
- Real-time analysis for Pollution Prevention
- Inherently Safer Chemistry for Accident Prevention
[Slide 37]
We have been running a symposium at the American Chemical Society. Last year and this year, we focused on green nanotechnology. There will be another one in spring of 2007. The kinds of papers that were presented are synthesis of nanomaterials using green chemistry principles, such as solid state, low energy, and self-assembly; using membranes and catalysts to green up processes; nano-enabled green energy -- one specific to hydrogen economy, one specific for new materials in energy --, bio-inspired nanotechnology, and some environmental uses of nanotechnology. Last year we had fifty papers in this symposium. [Slide 38]
We have some examples that came out of that symposium. There are some DNA templates of gold nanoparticles. We can use a kind of engineered bacteria to make nanoparticles of PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate). Another example is to lower the energy in fuctionalizing nanotubes by using microwaves. These result from basic research that helps enable a greener kind of manufacturing. [Slide 39]
We have the '60s -- Barry Commoner’s Laws of Ecology, and they still fit. You can’t throw any thing away. It doesn’t go away. We have conservation of matter. These are physical laws. Everything is connected to everything else. You can’t do just one thing; nature knows best. Our natural processes work better without excessive harm to humans or the environment. There is no such thing as a free lunch. That’s entropy. You just cannot do anything without losing something. If you don’t put something in the ecology, it’s not there. So if you don’t put something out into the environment, it won’t be there. [Slide 40]
There is an example of full systems that you probably have seen with industrial ecology showing. How can we try to close loops? We recycle, remanufacture, reuse, and when we get to end of life, we try to recover the kinds of materials and products that we have put out there. [Slide 41]
There are mammalian cells. Mammalian cells are about 30-50 μm in diameter. Nucleus is about 10 μm and DNA is 2 nm. Ribosomes are 20-30 nm in diameter. In this 30-50 μm size cell, we have the nucleus that has information bearing material in it. This information-bearing DNA unwinds, templates with RNA, which goes over to ribosome and codes amino acids to form proteins. Proteins are structural or they are catalytic. The structure and the making of new materials through the catalysis form new cells out of this whole nano-manufacturing cell. So it forms new cells, differentiating into tissues, into organs, and finally into a full organism. [Slide 42]
And starting with this nanoscale factory, you can make a whole human being. It’s bottom up using natural ingredients. There are no rare elements in this. We are using simple atoms such as carbon and hydrogen at room temperature. These are not high temperature processes. We have these small machines - ribosomes. They are in water. They are not toxic. There are complex feedback loops through DNA. There is redundancy. And the end of life disposal is accounted for -- some bacteria will “chew up” the organisms. This is definitely green nano. And we have broken no laws of chemistry, physics, or
biology in doing this. Nature does it. So the question is; how can we make a refrigerator this way at low temperature using simple ingredients? You can imagine a kind of biopolymer that would work. Keep the cell analogy in mind as a reasonable goal that just might be sustainable. It’s a little far away from the present reality, but it just might happen in the future. [Slide 43]
Nanotechnology offers a new way to look at the environmental protection through its power to remediate - so these are the applications - monitor and treat pollution; and more important, its power to prevent pollution in the first place. And then, nature can accomplish a sustainable world. Surely we can accomplish sustainability through this new scientific approach called “nanotechnology.” [Slide 44]
Keeping in mind the possible down sides. We need to know about this so that we can prevent risk in our future activities. So we need information on toxicity, exposure, and those things we talked about before. Research is beginning, but we need a much greater effort to keep up with the technology as it is brought up. [Slide 45]
I’ll leave you with a thought that this is a very powerful opportunity. We have the opportunity to do things right in the first place. It is an opportunity that’s too important for us to neglect. Thank you very much. [Slide 46]
For a full record of her lecture, please see the following link.
