Energy Related Nanoscience and Technologies

1
Energy Related Nanoscience and Technologies

• Tim Harper
• CientificaSeptember 2004

2
Cientifica - The First Nanotech Multinational

• Cientifica Ltd (London) The NanoBusiness
  Company
• Global nanotechnology business intelligence and
  consulting services to industry and investors
  worldwide.
• CMP Cientifica S.L. (Madrid) The NanoScience
  Company
• Management of scientific projects, contract
  research
• Cientifica Singapore Pvt Ltd (Singapore)
• Hub for Asian nanotechnologies and nanoscience
• Cientifica Nordic (Oslo)
• Hub for Nordic region nanotechnologies and
  nanoscience
• 15 full time staff speaking English, French,
  German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Norwegian,
  Mandarin and Japanese, most with PhDs/MBAs

3
What we do

• Our services include
• Connecting technology with markets and
  applications
• Technology tracking and business intelligence
• Technology and partner search
• Supply chain evaluation
• Technical and financial due diligence
• Market and strategic analysis and development
• Product development
• PR strategies
• Environmental analysis

4
Making the Right Connections
TNT 2004 Europe's biggest nanoscience conference
World NanoEconomic Congress global applications
focussed conference series
Phantoms Nanoelectronics Network gt2000 Members
Nanotechnology Opportunity Report and TNT Weekly
reaches key decision makers in industry,
government and finance
Member of EU NanoForum and NanoIndex, NanoTox
Projects
Founder of European NanoBusiness Association
Consulting clients ranging from Fortune 500
companies to start ups
Working with governments and institutions
Strong Asian presence through Singapore, Hong
Kong, Japan and Korea
Close relationships with both academics VCs
worldwide
5
Why Nanotechnology and Energy?

• Nanotechnology opens up a range of new approaches
  to dealing with existing problems
• Most businesses are looking for technologies for
• Making processes more efficient
• Making processes more economic
• Making processes more competitive
• Nanotechnology in the energy sector gives us two
  options
• Reduce Costs or
• Reduce Consumption
• First lets look at nanotechnology..

6
Nano is Nothing New almost 20 years old

• Scanning Tunnelling Microscopes (STM) were
  commercially available from the mid 80s
• The first commercial Atomic Force Microscope
  (AFM) the DI Nanoscope went on sale in 1989

Scientific American, August 1985, p. 50.
7
Working on the Nanoscale is Routine
Height image of banded spherulite of high density
polyethylene. 15 µm scan
Phase image of block copolymer (PCHE/PE) film.
400nm scan.

• Phase image of liquid crystalline carbosilane
  dendrimer

Images Courtesy Veeco
8
Different Views?
Source Bob Rosenbaum, Nanotech Advantage Israel
9
Nanotubes vs Nanobots

• The two flavours of nanotech

10
What is Nanotechnology?

• Nanotechnology is defined as
• the branch of engineering that deals with things
  smaller than 100 nanometres (especially with the
  manipulation of individual molecules)
• The manufacture of systems of molecular size that
  emulate the behaviour of larger systems. Any life
  system is potentially creatable in these
  dimensions, using standard biological or even
  inorganic components.
• The science of creating highly miniaturized
  machines that work on the molecular level.
• Atomic engineering--the ability to devise
  self-replicating machines, robots, and computers
  that are molecular sized.
• Constructing things one atom or molecule at a
  time or using programmed molecular sized robots
  called 'nanobots', for example treatment of
  disease from within the human body using
  nanobots.
• A technology based on the ability to build
  structures to complex, atomic specifications by
  means of mechanosynthesis this can be termed
  molecular nanotechnology.

11
And is Nanotechnology this
12
Or This?
Carbon Black or CNT tyre compounds
CNT in plastic components
13
Or This?
Translation from NIKKEI ELETRONICS 2003,1.20,
PAGE 85
14
Or This?
15
A More Useful Definition?

• Controlling physical properties by defining
  matter with molecular precision

16
Defining Nanotechnology with Precision

• Nanoscience is the study of phenomena and
  manipulation of materials at atomic, molecular
  and macromolecular scales, where properties
  differ significantly from those at a larger
  scale.
• But
• Nanotechnologies are the design,
  characterisation, production and application of
  structures, devices and systems by controlling
  shape and size at nanometre scale.
• -Source Royal Society Report on Nanoscience
  and Nanotechnologies Opportunities and
  Uncertainties, Policy Document 19/04, July 2004

17
Global Funding
Source European Commission
18
Handle With Care
What are we comparing? Currencies can be
converted but funding mechanisms can not. Numbers
are for information only.
19
Government Investment in Europe 2003
20
Global Funding Major Players
Source European Commission
21
Global Nanotech Issues

• Energy
• The reasons are becoming obvious
• Nanotechnology offers solution from fuels cells
  through photovoltaics to transmission and storage
  
• Water
• The major issue facing the world. It affects us
  all from Europe to Africa
• There is no fundamental shortage if water, its
  either in the wrong place, or it has something in
  it (from salt to pesticides)
• Health
• New drug delivery mechanisms freeing up medial
  professionals in developing countries
• Better quality of life for aging populations

22
Energy What We Need To Do

• Photovoltaics -- drop cost by 100 fold.
• Photocatalytic reduction of CO2 to methanol.
• Direct photoconversion of light water to
  produce H2.
• Fuel cells -- drop the cost by 10-100x low
  temp start reversible
• H2 storage -- light weight materials for
  pressure tanks and LH2 vessels, and/or a new
  light weight, easily reversible hydrogen
  chemisorption system (material X).
• Batteries, supercapacitors, flywheels --
  improve by 10-100x for automotive and distributed
  generation applications.
• Power cables (superconductors, or quantum
  conductors) with which to rewire the electrical
  transmission grid, and enable continental, and
  even worldwide electrical energy transport and
  also to replace aluminum and copper wires
  essentially everywhere -- particularly in the
  windings of electric motors and generators
  (especially good if we can eliminate eddy current
  losses).

Courtesy Professor Richard Smalley, Rice
University
23
Water

• Over 1 billion people lacking access to basic
  water supply and 2.4 billion people lacking
  access to basic sanitation.
• Up to 2,200,000 die each year due to diarrhoeal
  diseases, 90 percent of them among children under
  five.
• The developed world is facing its own problems,
  from climate change reducing snow pack feeding
  the Colorado River to salination of groundwater
  in Spain, and shortages of fresh water from
  Israel to Singapore.

24
nanoWater

• Nanotechnology can help solve water issues in a
  number of ways.
• Our new found understanding of the nanoscale is
  enabling existing technologies to become
  economically feasible, and offering new solutions
  to existing problems.
• We are not doing anything radical, just
  leveraging existing technologies to tip the
  balance.
• All of these solutions require Energy!

25
Renewable Energy Production

• Solar
• Reduce costs (roll to roll manufacturing)
• Increase efficiency
• Flexible substrates open up application areas
• Produce Hydrogen directly from sunlight
• Hydrogen Solar a 7 meter x 7 meter Tandem Cell
  unit on a double garage roof is capable of
  producing enough hydrogen from sunlight to run a
  Mercedes A-Class vehicle 11,000 miles over a year
  in Los Angeles light conditions."
• Wind
• Lighter, stiffer materials for blades
  (nanocomposite materials)
• Allows longer blades, swept area and power
  genration increases as the square of the blade
  length
• Storage
• Storage via supercapicitors, flywheels

26
Non-Renewable Energy Production

• Making better use of resources
• Increased efficiency
• Automotive - improved fuel economy
• Group rather than individual burning of fuel
  (nanocatalysts)
• Recovery and conversion of waste heat
• Integration of solar / fuel cell
• Solid state lighting
• Electrochromic windows requiring less airco
• New resources
• Gas liquefaction to allow transportation
  (catalysis)
• Coal liquefaction (catalysis)
• Materials / Sensors for exploration (robotics,
  imaging, sensing)

27
The Opportunity

• 6-8 billion is being spent on nanotechnology RD
  globally
• Much of this is for design of better materials
• Opportunities
• Significant breakthroughs in generation of
  renewables (lt5 years)
• Pressure building for fuel cells (Toyota drives
  GM drives Daimler Chrysler)
• Incremental improvements in handling of non
  renewables
• Little effect on transmission
• Many of the applications will not be called
  nano anything