Effects of nanotechnology on environment to be focus of workshop at Rice Dec. 10

CONTACT: B.J. Almond
PHONE:
(713) 348-6770
EMAIL: balmond@rice.edu

EFFECTS
OF NANOTECHNOLOGY ON ENVIRONMENT
TO BE FOCUS OF WORKSHOP AT RICE UNIVERSITY
DEC. 10
Presenters include a Nobel Prize laureate and Bill Clinton’s
former science adviser

Whether new
nanotechnologies that can help clean up the environment might also harm it will
be addressed during a workshop at Rice University Dec. 10.

Titled “Nanotechnology
and Environment: An Examination of the Potential Benefits and Perils of an
Emerging Technology,” the free workshop is open to the public.

“Emerging technologies
present new opportunities for improving the human condition, but they also have
the potential for unforeseen negative environmental consequences,” said Mark
Wiesner, director of Rice’s Energy and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI),
which is co-sponsoring the workshop with the Office for Science and Technology
of the French Embassy USA.

Wiesner cites Freon as
an example. This chemical was hailed as an important advance in refrigeration
because it was nontoxic and nonflammable. It replaced highly toxic compounds
that had caused numerous accidental deaths from their use in home refrigerators.
But decades later, scientists discovered that chlorofluorocarbons such as Freon
endangered Earth’s ozone layer.

“Nanotechnologies hold
great promise for creating new means of detecting pollutants, cleaning polluted
waste streams, recovering materials before they become wastes and expanding
available resources,” Wiesner said. “But the nanotechnology industry is just now
emerging, so we need to question whether it presents new environmental
challenges so that the products of nanochemistry do not become dangerous
environmental pollutants.”

Rice is hosting the
workshop in affiliation with its new Center for Biological and Environmental
Nanotechnology, one of six major Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers
recently announced by the National Science Foundation and the first to focus on
applications of nanoscience to biology and the environment.

Nanotechnologies involve
materials that are one-billionth of a meter. Research at the Rice center will
focus on the use of nanomaterials in water-based systems, ranging in size from
biomolecules and cells to whole organisms and the surrounding environment. New
nanostructured membranes are being developed for potable water treatment,
treatment of hazardous materials and environmental analysis. Such membranes
might be used to improve water quality while providing a higher level of
security to water-treatment systems.

“We’re bringing together
researchers from Rice and leading French research institutions in the area of
nanotechnology and environment with nanochemistry and environmental researchers
to discuss how nanotechnologies might be used to protect our environment and the
potential dangers they pose,” Wiesner said.

Among the scheduled
presenters are Richard Smalley, recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize for chemistry
and director of the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice, and
Neal Lane, a university professor at Rice who served as President Bill Clinton’s
science and technology adviser.

Topics to be addressed
in presentations at the workshop include carbon nanotubes; mineral
nanoparticles; nano-engineering chemical sensors for environmental applications;
nanostructured membranes; environmental quality on the “Nano-Coast;” transport
of nanoparticles in the environment; potential for facilitated transport of
contaminants by nanomaterials; potential for bio-uptake and bio-accumulation of
nanoparticles; and implications of nanotechnology for environmental policy and
society.

The workshop will be
held from 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. in Anne and Charles Duncan Hall, McMurtry
Auditorium, 6100 Main Street. A reception and poster session will be held from 5
to 6 p.m. Preregistration is not required.

For a complete list of
speakers and the times of presentations, see EESI’s Web site, <www.ruf.rice.edu/~eesi/Nano.htm>.