The Hindu Business Line : Atom-by-atom, from amoeba to elephant

Every molecular assembly in nature is nano technology. Therefore, an understanding of nano will help us to do things better, with improved efficiency — in much more eco-friendly, sustainable manner.

DR T. PRADEEP, PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY AND SOPHISTICATED ANALYTICAL INSTRUMENT FACILITY, IIT MADRAS

Small is beautiful, they say. Nano is more beautiful, professors like T. Pradeep would say. "The smallest distance one can see without instruments is 0.1 mm, or the thickness of a cotton fibre," writes Prof Pradeep in Nano: The Essentials (www.tatamcgrawhill.com) . Nano is a million times smaller, he explains. "It is about 1 mm if the cotton fibre were to be expanded to appear like a 100-metre-wide highway." Dr Pradeep is a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Sophisticated Analytical Instrument Facility (SAIF), Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

IIT Madras is just about to release a water purifier using nano technology, informs Dr Pradeep. "This removes pesticides from drinking water by an unusual chemistry utilising metal nanoparticles. This is the first nanotech product in the market using home-grown technology. There are several other efforts, but none have gone all the way to the market."

Excerpts from an interview:

What is nano technology and why is it necessary to know about it?

The term nano technology refers to a broad range of technologies, all of which involve the utilisation of the properties of nano scale objects. Nano scale refers to the size regime of nanometers or 10 to the power of -9 meters. The properties of materials in this size regime are unique. Nano technologies became possible as a result of our capability to manipulate matter with atomic precision. At the scale of nanometer, all disciplines converge. Therefore, nano technology is a fusion technology.

At this length scale, new properties and new phenomena come about. Materials start behaving differently. An example is reactive gold. Till now we knew only about noble metal gold, which does not change with time. Now we have highly reactive gold. In addition, we know of fluorescent and magnetic gold. This example suggests that numerous other materials with completely different properties could be made. This possibility is a result of the capability to manipulate matter at this length scale — the length scale of atoms.

Why should we know about it? Well, look at nature. Leaves make complex molecules called carbohydrates starting from a single carbon molecule, carbon-dioxide, present in air. These molecules make life possible for all of us. Every molecular assembly in nature is by this atom-by-atom approach. From amoeba to elephant is made this way. These synthetic routes are the most energy efficient, green and sustainable. The motion of a muscle fibre, or a flagellum is the result of nano technologies. Therefore, ultimately an understanding of these will help us to do things better, with improved efficiency — in much more eco-friendly, sustainable manner. Of course when you look at properties at this length scale, one may find new things. That drives the other side of scientific enquiry — curiosity.

Examples of areas where nano is happening. In terms of research. Are there instances of outsourced research too?

As nano science and nano technology are unifying areas, activities happen in all disciplines. Chemistry, physics, materials science, biology, medicine, agriculture, mechanical, electrical and electronics engineering departments of major institutions have people active in nano. The area is broad, but in all sub-areas we have programmes in the country.

I am aware of nano research in India being sponsored by multinationals. There are also foreign research funds in fundamental research.

On hurdles that progress in nano technology faces. Do you think that the Budget proposals can make a difference?

For a country of our size, the requirements are large and the funds are limited. Therefore, work does suffer due to inadequate funding. But funding alone cannot change the present scenario.

Nano is a cutting-edge science. It demands state-of-the-art instrumentation. Ordinary nano research will soon become obsolete and without state of the art tools, no one will be able to stay in the frontiers. Such infrastructure needs continuous upgradation. Therefore, long-term funding is a must. Technologies do not come about in short time. Our problem is often that we do not fund adequately for long.

The other issue is that most of the universities do not have infrastructure even to do basic things. As a result of long negligence, stagnation, inadequate recruitment, poor administration, external influences, etc. the universities are in a dilapidated state and if lots of funding suddenly became available, they would not be in a position to absorb it properly.

We need long-term commitment to the universities. The India we see today was built by universities and not IITs. The Indian space, nuclear, defence, etc. programmes are principally due to the products of the Indian university system. In fact, the IITs and the IISc are also largely due to the university inputs. Therefore, if the universities are not strengthened, there is no future. This is not only in nano, but also in all areas.

How far are Indian companies paying attention to nano?

If you include the state-owned companies and institutions, there are some activities. Space, defence, petroleum, nuclear sectors have nano activities. There are a handful of efforts in private companies. Tatas are investing in nano research. A few nano start-ups have come up in the country. Investments of Indian companies have always been slow in advanced technology.

I must say that there is a recent realisation that nano can help many sectors. As a result, industries are not hesitant now to invest, provided there is a viable plan and guaranteed return. However, Indian institutional structure is not yet fully ready for immediate exchange of technologies to industries. Academician still looks down upon technology. It is often ridiculed as development. Development gets recognised rarely. I would say that Indian industry even now think that academia exist in isolation. The view is not much different if looked at from the other side as well.

Can nano advancement make a difference to developing countries such as India? How? Are there studies on how nano can help agriculture or the rural people, more economic health care and so on?

Nano technologies are likely to have greater impact in the developing world. If advanced materials can be made through nano particles, there is no need for large, energy consuming industries. That will make it possible to have value-added products manufactured in small-scale enterprises. Nano knowledge is likely to be with smaller groups and they can get into production. The likely impact of nano will be in areas such as water purification, health, etc., where our requirements are unique.

The presence of large trained work force, unique requirements of the society, large medical and industrial needs of developing countries imply that advanced technologies will be better utilised in those societies. Besides, if we do not want to miss the boat, and do not want to repeat the semiconductor story, we need to be ready and make this plunge.

Are there dangers that we need to be aware of... like nano discoveries in wrong hands?

Yes, just as any other area, advance science has its other implications. Nano has implications to warfare, spread of diseases, etc. There can also be environmental impacts of nano technology. As nano particles are as small as biological molecules, they can interact with biology and may alter it. Well, all these issues are important, but these are not problems unique to nano. All other technologies such as biotechnology and nuclear technology also have these implications. All it means is that nano technology in specific areas must be practiced with caution.

It is very likely that nano rules and regulations will appear soon. The toxicity limit of a nano material may not be the same as that of the bulk material. We are now learning that toxicity is size dependent. Obviously this is an aspect which has not entered into regulations, but soon it may.

On the road ahead...

We have to get into this area in a very big way. It is still early, although lot has happened already. There must be sustained efforts so that we could harness the benefits of our investment. For this, science has to be nurtured in the universities. All impediments to the growth of our university system must be removed. We have to realise that nation and its young are more important than short-term goals.

The other important lesson from nano is that all sciences are the same at the frontiers. We have to allow our youngsters to choose what they want to pursue. If a nation has to succeed, we have to allow our children do what they are passionate about. In nano, engineering, medicine and science converge. Why push the kids to pursue one over the other, realising fully that they are the same at the frontiers? Let them be free to enjoy nature and its intricacies so that they decide what is their passion.

Where is India on the nano map? Who are the top players, globally and in India? What is the Intellectual Property status in this field?

Research in nano became intense with the discovery of nano tools. The most important among these tools is the scanning tunnelling microscope. This discovery happened in 1981. Several other tools were developed around this time. New materials were made. A significant discovery is that of C60; which happened in 1985, although it was made in the solid state only in 1990. Just after this, we in India started intense research efforts on this molecule and later, on carbon nano tubes. The C60 work in India was initiated by me in the laboratory of Prof C. N. R. Rao in Bangalore. He is the most active and prolific researcher in the nano area in the country. His research spans a range of synthetic nano structures. He studies advanced materials, their structure, spectroscopy and properties.

There are numerous other players in the area and if I mention a few, I am bound to miss a few others. However, the active players are Prof Ajay Sood, Prof Kamanio Chattopadhyay, Prof S. Sampath and Prof Ravishankar of Indian Institute of Science; Prof K. N. Ganesh of Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune; Prof Asutosh Sharma, Prof Y. N. Mahapatra, Prof S. Sarkar and Prof R. C. Budhani of IIT Kanpur; Prof B. R. Mehta and Prof A. K. Ganguly of IIT Delhi; Prof Pramanik and Prof T. Pal of IIT Kharagpur; Prof Arun Chattopadhyay of IIT Guwahati; Prof D. Bahadur and Prof Ramgopal Rao of IIT Bombay; Dr Murali Sastry of Tata Chemicals, Mumbai, Dr K. Vijayamohanan and Dr B. V. R. Prasad of NCL Pune; Prof T. P. Radhakrishan of Central University, Hyderabad; Prof A. K. Raychaudhuri of SN Bose Centre, Kolkata; Prof Milan Sanyal of Saha Institute, Kolkata; Prof D. D. Sarma and Prof D. Chakravorty of IACS, Kolkata; Prof O. N. Srivastava of BHU; Prof G. U. Kulkarni, Prof S. Balasubramaniam, Prof Swapan Pati and Prof Narayan of JNCASR, Bangalore; Dr G. V. Shivashankar of National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore; Dr K. George Thomas and Dr A. Ajayaghosh of RRL, Thiruvananthapuram; and Prof Pushan Ayyub of TIFR, Mumbai.

We in IITM have an active programme. Here, Professors Sarit Kumar Das, T. Sundararajan, B. Viswanathan, B. S. Murty, S. Ramaprabhu, Ramachandra Rao and C. Vijayan and several others work in this area. Intense activities are taking place in a number of national labs and other research institutions. Prof S. K. Kulkarni of Univeristy of Pune and Prof S. Ramasamy of Madras University have large nano programmes. In atomic energy, there are large programmes. For example, at IGCAR, under the leadership of Dr Baldev Raj, there is a significant nano programme. I am aware of the work of several others, but it is impossible to mention all.

In the global scene, nano research is going strong in Europe, the US, Japan and China. There are several national nano initiatives. While there were over 12,000 papers from the US in 2006 in the nano area, there were about 8000 from China, 4200 from Japan and 1500 from India. Globally this number is about 43000 for that year. From this, one can get a fair understanding of the players. Chinese contributions are increasing tremendously in the past few years.

The patent literature is also increasing. About 3800 patents related to nano were issued in the US in the first half of 2005. The number of nano companies is increasing fast. Almost all large companies in materials science, chemistry, biotech, electronics, etc., have nano-related programmes. Start-ups are coming up around universities and several of them are doing well.

Is nano high in the choice list of science students? What are the job opportunities?

Currently science is becoming attractive to a larger number of students. Well, this is not to say that science is the major attraction. All I mean is that in comparison to the previous years, a larger number of good students are opting for science.

There is no nano technology undergraduate or masters programme in major universities and institutions. I am aware of a few in some deemed universities and autonomous colleges, however.

I believe that nano should be taught as an elective for a majority of science and engineering disciplines and medicine. This is to create an appreciation for the emerging technologies, manufacturing practices and opportunities in the frontiers of science. Several universities and colleges are initiating activities in this area.

If there are good courses students will take them. Right now many of the institutions do not have adequate resources, both human and infrastructural, to offer nano courses. In the institutions where these are available, courses must start immediately. Such students who have an appreciation for nano sciences and technologies will have an edge over others in jobs. This is especially true of advanced research and institutions using advanced technology.

We have to realise that nano products are already in the market place and many are about to get into the market. This will open up more opportunities in nano-related production and applied nano research. At the same time, the public by and large who are the nano consumers, have to be aware of the problems and prospects of nano. As nano is going to impact all aspects of the economy, tomorrow's citizen need to be aware of nano science and nano technology. I am sure that nano will be part of the high school curriculum within the next 5-10 years.

MuraliDe@gmail.com

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