On September 19, 2017, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it was awarding nearly $100,000 in Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding to NanoSafe, Inc. in Blacksburg, Virginia to foster technologies that can accurately measure lead levels in household drinking water. SBIR funding is intended to help small, high-tech businesses develop proof of concepts that can be brought to market and commercialized. With more and more attention being focused on the safety of public and private drinking water, simple, inexpensive and accurate measurement of contaminants such as lead in household water supplies is seen as a priority.
NanoSafe, Inc. will use the funding to develop technology that consumers could someday use to measure lead concentrations in their homes’ drinking water to determine if those levels fall within the EPA limit of 15 parts per million. NanoSafe, Inc. is using nanoscale science and engineering to develop new technologies to help identify and eliminate waterborne public health threats posed by our nation’s aging infrastructure. The company’s stated goal is to develop a Mobile Analytical Platform (MAP) that will allow detection of threats at the earliest possible stage, when problems can be most easily remedied and health risks minimized. While the exact nanotechnology involved in this project was not identified by the EPA, nanoscale materials or nanoscale substances are chemical substances that have structures with dimensions at the nanoscale.
The term “nanoscale” applies to any structure with at least one dimension measured from one to 100 nanometers. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. One millimeter contains a million nanometers. To provide perspective, the width of a single sheet of paper is 100,000 nanometers. The diameter of a human hair is 10,000 nanometers. A nanometer is 1000 times smaller than the diameter of a red blood cell. At the nanoscale, the physical, chemical, electrical and biological properties of matter differ in fundamental ways from the properties of the same matter in its macro or bulk form. Below 50 nanometers, Newtonian physics give way to quantum physics and that the chemical, electrical, physical, mobility, solubility, magnetic and optical properties of matter are altered. For example, at the nanoscale, it is reported that carbon becomes stronger than steel, aluminum becomes highly explosive and silver assumes biological properties and becomes a biocide. Engineers apply nanoscience to take advantage of these unique properties.
The projected applications of nanotechnology are almost limitless and are incorporated into appliances, coatings, electronics, food, beverages, toys, games, clothing, cosmetics, paint, home, pharmaceutical, electronics and textiles. Incorporation of nanomaterials is expected to impact scientific advancement in engineering technologies, space exploration, pollution control and national security.
Clearly NanoSafe, Inc.’s MAP home testing device would be another example. Since its inception in 2001, through and including amounts it has budgeted for 2017, the National Nanotechnology Initiative has invested 23 billion in nanotechnology. One research group has estimated that by 2018, investment in nanotechnology will reach $4 trillion worldwide.
Ironically, NanoSafe, Inc.’s use of nanotechnology to help detect and curtail the presence of lead in drinking water comes at a time when certain nanomaterials are coming under increasing governmental scrutiny as some research has suggested that they could pose potential hazards to both human health and the environment.