here i am..!!

Standardising nanotechnologies

2010-12-26T12:04:00.001+05:00

Peter Hatto, Chairman of the UK’s European and international standardisation committees for nanotechnologies, and Stuart MacLachlan of the UK’s Materials Knowledge Transfer Network, discuss the latest on nanotechnology standardisation

Voluntary standards not only support existing businesses but assist new technologies and materials to market in an efficient, safe and reliable manner. They also play a critical role in facilitating product and market development and ensuring quality.

One exemplar of this is nanotechnologies, where the UK is playing a pivotal role in the development of the standards infrastructure. Following a proposal from the UK International Organisation for Standardisation Technical Committee (TC), a technical report, ISO/TR 11360:2010 has been published for the classification and categorisation of nanomaterials to offer a comprehensive methodology.

The ISO/TC 229 was established in June 2005 to develop standards for this rapidly growing area of technology. Since then, it has held 10 meetings, with the most recent in Maastricht, The Netherlands, in May 2010. The next meeting, being held in December in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, will see the Committee’s 44 members develop its work programme of some 36 items in four areas – terminology and nomenclature; measurement and characterisation; environment, health and safety, and material specifications.

Challenges ahead

Unlike most other ISO Technical Committees, TC 229 does not focus on a particular product or sector but is developing ‘horizontal’ standards to provide foundational support across all sectors that use nanotechnologies or nanomaterials. At its inception, three areas were highlighted for support.

Firstly, the Committee recognises that, while nanotechnology is still very much in itsinfancy, there are a plethora of terms being used, often in different ways by the wide diversity of disciplines involved. Secondly, while a number of instruments and techniques are available for measuring and characterising nanomaterials and other products of nanotechnology, these often give conflicting or misleading results due to the absence of strict measurement and characterisation protocols and calibration artifacts.

Finally, there is growing concern about possible health and environmental impacts of nanomaterials, particularly nano-particles and other ‘nano-objects'. Because of the interdependence of these three areas it was agreed they would be addressed in three separate working groups, rather than being dealt with in a semi-autonomous sub-committee structure.

The fourth working group, on materials specification, has been established following a survey of member’s needs, which identified the area as being critical to the development of applications for nanomaterials.

In addition, the Committee has Task Groups that are developing recommendations as to how it should address the areas of nano-technologies and sustainability, and consumer and societal dimensions of nanotechnologies.

Great minds

The TC also works closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission TC 113 (nanotechnology standardisation for electrical and electronic products and systems), in the areas of terminology and nomenclature (Joint Working Group 1) and measurement and characterisation (Joint Working Group 2). The two Technical Committees hold joint plenary meetings at least every two years. The TC 229 also works closely with the European Committee for Standardisation in the area (TC 352 Nanotechnologies, also chaired by the UK).

Liaisons have been established with 25 other ISO TC’s that will be impacted by nanotechnologies, and with several external bodies such as the EC Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, the Asia Nano Forum and IUPAC.

The UK actively participates in the work of both ISO/TC 229 and CEN/TC 352, through the UK national nanotechnology standards technical committee, BSI/NTI/1. In addition to leading seven projects in TC 229 and two in TC 352, members of NTI/1 and other UK experts are participating in over 75% of the projects under development.

With the support of the UK Department of Business Innovation and Skills, BSI/NTI/1 has also been developing standards to support UK stakeholders. These include seven terminologies, and guidance on labelling of products containing nanomaterials, specifying nanomaterials, and safe handling and disposal of nanomaterials, all of which are available for free download from the BSI website (see www.bsigroup. com/nano). BSI has also just published PD 6699-3 - Guide to assessing airborne exposure in occupational settings relevant to nanomaterials.

Business opportunity

To further support UK companies, particularly SMEs, a publicly available specification (PAS) that gives guidance to legislation and standards relevant to nanotechnologies is in preparation and will be available by the middle of next year.

For a list of ISO documents published to date visit the TC 229 page on the ISO website at www.iso.org

Work in progress

The first two documents developed by the Committee were published in 2008 – ISO/TS 27687 Nanotechnologies – Terminology and definitions for nano-objects – nanoparticle, nanofibre and nanoplate; and ISO/TR 12885 – Nanotechnologies – Health and safety practices in occupational settings relevant to nanotechnologies. A further five have been published since January this year. The number of published documents will increase by 10 – 15, over the next 12 months. Website: www.iso.org

Further information

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Material witness

2010-11-20T16:51:00.002+05:00

Fictions can be facts someday but facts are facts as time lasts.If we look close everything is a fiction until it is experimentally shown to world . No wonder the existence of almighty is still a fact or fiction all time debate here on blue planet.Lets get rid of that subject.We people simply can't discard books and movies are only for time sake and time killers.Life is being written in form letters ( present scenario it is in the form of bits(0's n 1's).Movies and Books are products of human creativity ,taking movies into account we reached moon in screens ,people used laser beams as guns ,robots were well born in advance than actually these things happened in reality, thus FICTION movies are mother of revolutionary inventions.

Well i have a latest revolutionary fiction news cited in a journal authored by Philip Ball."How a leaf transfers energy from one molecular system to another is nothing short of a miracle!.Quantum coherence is key to efficiency ,with the system sampling all the energy pathways all at once.And the way nanotechnology is heading ,we could copy this right for materials....".This is not a grant proposals of any science organizations these are from Ian Ewan's latest novel SOLAR in which a young researcher proposes to use of Quantum effects to improve photo-catalytic

water splitting,ushering in the vaunted in hydrogen economy.

Ian McEwan.

McEwan is renowned for doing his scientific homework.(to swear i have never heard him until i went through this article full credit goes to Mr.Philip Ball).In his work he has demonstrated quantum coherence used to assist energy transfer in antennae of the light harvesting complex of photo-system.The protein -pigment converts light absorption into electron flow,initiating photo-electrochemical process that split water and drive synthesis of the energy storage ATP molecules.

Quantum coherence refers that electronically excited quantum states of pigment chromophores called exciton maintain a correlated phase relationship for long enough to assist transfer of the excitation energy towards the reaction center, where negative particle(electron )is ejected from chlorophyll.All the above takes in nanoscale arrangement of the pigment molecules!.

Mimicking photosynthesis in artificial Nano- structures has a strong pedigree in solar-cell technology.Quantum coherence is precisely already sought in quantum computers where QUBITS provide extra channels for storing and processing data. The article was innovative and firmly i believe our science will make QUANTUM LEAVES IN FACT rather than in FICTION ..Its very obvious that nature's and has 'secrets of blue planet ,so people take care of our Eco-home GO GREEN!!!

REFERENCE:WWW.nature.com/materials.(NATURE MATERIALS,VOL 9,AUGUST2010.

G-force!

2010-11-11T12:00:00.002+05:00

A clown walks on stage. Maybe he pulls a cowboy pistol from a holster. Maybe he pops a balloon. Either way, the punch line is unavoidable: His pants fall down. Children roar with laughter, but this is far more than a mere sight gag. This is one of the four fundamental forces of nature in action.One of the force obviously is gravitational force.Gravity the thing which attracts anythings i guess GOD disguised himself as G-force!!.The great genius Albert Einstein have shown us that gravity is the consequence product of space-time curvature.Right from third grade i remember the term ' gravity' my teacher taught me "it is force that keeps us back in earth and holds earth itself in its own orbit...blah..blah".We as students took their words .
In my sixth grade we students were introduced to great Newton's laws, well and good they are remarkable laws of physics.Moving to higher grade Einstein came into picture and his ideas were pretty different though we as school guys didn't understood what his proposals really mean ,all we knew was E=MC^2 .Opening books in graduation shown me that Newton laws are outdated one in Quantum world and Einstein proposals stood contradict with Quantum cafe!!!The thing very clear is quantum and celestial world are very different and the gravity is only analogous thing in both worlds.I get your mind voice...may wonder what this guy is trying to point out !!!?its very simple and assure you its not any scientific conclusion but a scientific truth yes it is!I said the role of gravity ...yep even this convincing force is ruled out when it is applied to context of love...Einstein quoted once "Gravity is not responsible for ppl falling in love"obviously its true and something stronger ,much stronger than g-force because it is love that binds god (who is in g-force)and people .Speaking scientifically i wonder how come g-force??i googled it turned out as GRAVITONS are invisible particles and they produce gravitational waves responsible for g-force!!is that enough of course only that much has been told!!Gravitons or no gravitons, we know that what goes up must come down. Perhaps someday, we'll know exactly why. But until then, we can be satisfied just knowing that planet Earth won't go hurdling into the sun anytime soon. Gravity is keeping it safely in orbit.
what am blabbering is all to say love is much stronger force than any thing so people love life around you stay healthy and happy!c u later

My ranger!

2010-11-02T17:41:00.010+05:00

If anyone asks me don't you get bored in attending classes everyday?and my prompt reply will be"Of course i do get damn bored!,but i wonder myself whats the thing that motivates me to go college!!!"i say you the thing is my new ranger bicycle!.In age of 20 guys love to race in bike ,being an environmental concerned dude i always opt cycle(to be honest i would be restricted by mom if i opt bike).I love cycling as i do swimming,just pedalling the wheels and gazing two sides of roads especially Indian roads is damn lovely moments.I still remember my childhood days when i learnt cycling by my own using my grandpa's cycle ....Cycle is the thief vehicle for me and my bro,we used to ride through a coast(ironical actually its not a coast)we just hand the pot kept in stream where fishes get trapped and the trap was set by someone but always we used to be the fishers!!! Owing a cycle is my childhood dream though i did not owe any .My bro got a ranger for his college days which was under my stands after his graduation..badly time made me too move out of typical village for my graduation and the thing which was under my stand got sold for cheap rate.Never mind now i owe one the red envious turbo drive!!!Of all ride in drizzling road in your own frame of reference and viewing your atmosphere in another frame of reference at slow phase is like watching Rahul Dravid playing his solid innings ...You can feel only if you experience it so ppl opt cycle and feel the experience both in mind and body!!!!!going for a ride catch you soon!!!stay healthy.....

ma first post

2010-10-30T17:06:00.000+06:00

Hi all here comes my first post in style.Am not geek but still am just like all in different way!!next time hopefully will come up with good post till then bye!!stay healthy.