Mar. 8, 2007 — As nanotechnology investments and product revenues grow&#8212$12.4 billion was invested in nanotech R&D worldwide in 2006, and over $50 billion worth of nano-enabled products were sold&#8212cross-border nanotech activity is becoming more important. Companies must change their practices to take advantage of international funding, innovation, manufacturing, and markets for their nano-enabled products, says a new report from Lux Research titled “Profiting from International Nanotechnology.”

“Companies active in nanotech risk missing out on key opportunities by not looking beyond their own borders,” said the report’s author, Senior Analyst Michael Holman, Ph.D. “It’s important for them to understand which nations are strong in nanotechnology development. Our latest study found that the U.S., Japan, Germany, and South Korea remain leaders, but China is moving into the top tier on nanotech activity as its nanotechnology spending, publications, and even patents grow.”

To construct its assessment, Lux Research collected extensive data on nanotechnology funding and other key metrics, such as patents and publications, and drew on site visits conducted over the course of the year in Taiwan, South Korea, China, Japan, Germany, the U.K., France, and Israel. The study found that:

* Government spending on nanotechnology grew to $6.4 billion in 2006, up 10% from $5.9 million in 2005. The U.S. leads on this metric, with $1.78 billion from federal and state governments, followed by Japan with $975 million and Germany with $563 million. However, at purchasing power parity (PPP)&#8212a factor that corrects for the lower costs of goods and services in many nations&#8212China reaches second place, with funding equivalent to $906 million.

* Corporations spent $5.3 billion on nanotech R&D in 2006, a 19% increase over 2005, with the U.S. leading the way at $1.93 billion, followed by Japan with $1.70 billion at PPP. Developing nations are further behind on corporate spending, but some saw strong growth&#8212China’s estimated corporate nanotech funding reached $165 million at PPP, up 68% from its 2005 total.

* Among publications on nanoscale science and engineering topics since 1995, the largest number, over 43,000, come from the U.S. China is in second place with more than 25,000&#8212and added over 6,000 publications in 2006, more than twice as many as third-place Japan. International patent activity also swelled, growing 31% in 2006 to reach 10,105 patents from the countries studied. The U.S. holds the lion’s share, with 6,801 patents; Germany is in second place with 773.

The report analyzes 14 countries’ nanotech competitiveness on two axes: 1) nanotechnology activity, which evaluates nanotech innovation on an absolute scale; and 2) technology development strength, which gauges the relative ability of nations to use those innovations to drive economic growth. “It’s clear that leading nations in nanotech, particularly the U.S. and Japan, aren’t going to be pushed aside any time soon,” Dr. Holman said. “They will have more competition at the top, however. It was striking that even within the top tier, countries like South Korea grew much closer to the U.S. and Japan, and developing nations like China, India, and Russia made strong moves forward just in the last year.”

Mar. 8, 2007 — BioAmber, a joint venture of Diversified Natural Products (DNP), a U.S. based biotechnology company, and French based Agro Industries Recherche et Developpement (ARD), announced plans for a new facility to produce a green, bio-based replacement for oil in the chemical market.

The partners say that BioAmber will be a true bio-refinery, with the ability to make succinic acid&#8212a full platform molecule used to make biodegradable chemicals&#8212utilizing the CO2 from a newly constructed ethanol facility located on the same premises. The plant will be able to generate green chemicals, ethanol, bio-diesel, and combination products of succinic acid and ethanol, all in one location.

This promises be the first, true bio-refinery built anywhere in the world that will offer such a diverse mix of potential products.

“The creation of BioAmber and our new facility, not only moves the ball forward in developing green, planet-friendly products and chemicals but shows that it is economically viable to do so,” said DNP CEO Paul F. Jacobson. “We are excited to announce this new plant which will be at the forefront of the green global trend.”

The new facility, set to open in summer 2008 in the agro-industrial complex of Bazancourt-Pomacle, France and near BioAmber research facilities, will provide cutting-edge environmental solutions by producing succinic acid, a molecule that can be used to create a multitude of green chemicals, such as biodegradable deicers, coolants, plastics, environmentally safe solvents, personal care products and diesel fuel additives that reduce emissions.

BioAmber has already begun supplying samples of succinic acid to companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia who are looking to turn their products green, and will aggressively seek further partners to develop the business on a worldwide basis. It is important to note that succinic acid can be made from a variety of sources, and will not be reliant on a single crop. “We intend for BioAmber to prove that succinic acid can be used in a wide variety of industries to turn oil based products green,” said ARD CEO Yvon Le Henaff.

The succinic acid from BioAmber’s industrial demonstration plant, which will have an annual capacity of 5,000 metric tons, is made from sucrose or glucose fermentation using patented technology from the U.S. Department of Energy in collaboration with Michigan State University.

Mar. 8, 2007 — Nano Chemical Systems Holdings, Inc. has announced plans to merge with SolarDiesel, Inc., a biodiesel manufacturing and distribution operation. The transaction has a value in excess of $100,000,000.

John Stanton, Chairman of SolarDiesel, explained the rationale for this move: “Our investment banking advice was to find a high-tech company with synergistic products and conduct biodiesel operations through a single, focused entity. We have already sold more that 1 million gallons of palm biodiesel. The company’s business plan has been well received by the investment banking community.”

Dr. Matthew Zuckerman, CEO and President of NCSH, commented: “This is a green letter day for NCSH shareholders. SolarDiesel has a unique biodiesel manufacturing capability and NCSH has the nano-technology to improve all biodiesel products usability and shelf-life. With an uninterrupted supply and control from feedstock to final product, NCSH can now accomplish its mission of fully advancing nano-technology into the mainstream production and expansive distribution of bio-friendly diesel fuel, oils and lubricants.”

“NCSH’s patents and products that can maximize the profitability of biodiesel manufacturing operations and the shelf life of biodiesel products play right into SolarDiesel’s goal of producing the highest quality and most consistent biodiesel that will be available.” commented Stanton.

Post-merger, the combined NCSH/SolarDiesel companies will complete plans to construct a 45 million gallon per year biodiesel plant and implement other aspects of the biodiesel business plan. Biodiesel usage has been universally recognized as the fastest method to reduce CO2 and carcinogenic particulate emissions.

Mar. 7, 2007 — The new X’Pert Stress Plus 2.0 software from PANalytical, Almelo, The Netherlands, promises a novel application in X-ray diffraction: the analysis of residual stresses in polycrystalline coatings. The software is part of a larger package that includes PANalytical’s existing X’Pert PRO hardware platform and the recently extended stress measurement possibilities of X’Pert Data Collector 2.2.

PANalytical’s offering now enables residual stress analysis of any combination of substrate and polycrystalline coating material. Dedicated techniques allow measurement of nanocrystalline, randomly orientated or highly textured polycrystalline coatings. The substrate can be of any nature: amorphous, polycrystalline, or single crystal.

X’Pert Stress Plus 2.0 is designed to assist industrial research on thin films, coatings and surface layers. Practical application examples are wide ranging and include materials such as titanium carbide on steel, TiAlN coating on tool inserts, surface stresses in ceramics and oxide coatings on glass.

PANalytical says that X’Pert Stress Plus 2.0 supports all data used for the analysis of polycrystalline coatings, including grazing incidence measurements and multiple {hkl} peak analysis. It combines the benefits of the updated X’Pert Stress package with new functionality. The new X’Pert Stress Plus software is dedicated to residual stress analysis in polycrystalline coatings, whereas X’Pert Stress is designed for classical single {hkl} sin2ø stress analysis. Both packages can be used interactively or run automatically. A wide choice of pattern treatments is available and options for peak position determination are extended.

By Jezz Leckenby, Small Times guest contributor

Harvard Professor Charles Lieber

Mar. 6, 2007 — Attendees at Pittcon 2007 (the Pittsburgh Conference for Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy) were inspired to think about nanotechnology. Micro and nanotechnologies constituted a theme in the conference and exhibits—and the plenary lecture featured Harvard Professor Charles Lieber, widely recognised as a leader in nanotechnology. Lieber’s work blends physics and chemistry with electrical and biological systems, and is focused on “bottom up” manufacture using components a few nanometers in size. He uses nanowires to construct devices and circuits, and chemical synthesis to encode information for detection of biomarkers, explosives, and more.

Lieber summarized his research by saying that he has studied nature’s building blocks to understand their fundamental properties and structure on the nanoscale. From these, he has developed new concepts that are enabling divergence from conventional paradigms. The resulting hybrid systems, created from the bottom up, have the potential to impact science, technology, and society at all levels. Moreover, they will undoubtedly open up new areas and capabilities that are simply unattainable today.

Lieber’s group has used a number of cancer markers to test the technology, and has used it to make the first measurements on blood serum. Applications are also being studied to assist with chemical threat detection at astonishing sensitivities: better than 0.1 parts per trillion!

Exciting work is now under way where an array of nanowires is first patterned with chemicals used to grow neurons. The nanowires are used to both excite and record changes of the axons which conduct electrical impulses away from the nerve cell body. The goal is to be able switch the neurons on and off.

While Lieber has been able to demonstrate multiplexed detection using nanowires arrays, there is a need for sophisticated electronics to process the signals—and not surprisingly, the scale-up process is in its infancy. However, progress indicates an ability to measure reactions on the nanoscale, and to enable single-molecule sensitivity.

Building the “ultimate sensor”—able to detect a single particle such as a virus—is one of Lieber’s goals. Early tests have shown the ability to detect Influenza A receptors through a drop in conductance.

Mar. 6, 2007 — Altair Nanotechnologies Inc. (Nasdaq: ALTI), a manufacturer of high-performance battery pack systems, announced that AES Corporation (NYSE: AES) has made a $3 million strategic investment in Altair.

AES privately purchased 895,523 treasury shares of Altair common stock at $3.35 per share, the NASDAQ closing price of Altair shares on the day prior to closing. Altair agreed to register the resale of such shares. The purchased shares represent approximately 1.5% of Altair’s outstanding common shares.

AES is a global power company with 2005 revenues over $11 billion. With operations in 26 countries on five continents, AES claims its generation and distribution facilities have the capacity to serve 100 million people worldwide.

“Advanced battery technologies have the potential to transform both the electricity and transportation sectors”, said Robert Hemphill, Executive Vice President of AES. “The batteries that Altairnano is beginning to ship, with their high power density and extended cycle life, offer great promise for powerful, fast charging electric vehicles and other applications.”

“AES is a leader in the global power sector with a long history of innovative project development. Altairnano and AES have a common focus on the alternative energy market and we are proud to have them as a major investor,” said Altair President and Chief Executive Officer, Alan J. Gotcher, Ph.D.