Nanotechnology May Help Nepal Achieve MDGs

Nanotechnology has tremendous possibility to create many new materials and devices with numerous applications, such as in medicine, electronics, and energy production.

By Dr. Khagendra Thapa

Due to several factors, Nepal remains as one of the least developed countries in the world. Political instability, lack of visionary leadership, geographical location (being land-locked) as well as the difficult terrain have contributed to the extreme poverty of our people. According to International Monetary Fund (IMF), Nepal is ranked 167 out of 178 countries in 2007 in terms of per capita income. Only 11 countries had lower per capita income than Nepal.

In September 2000, 189 member states of the UN agreed on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These goals were signed by 147 heads of state and governments during the UN Millennium Summit. There are eight goals to be achieved by 2015 that respond to the world's main development challenges. All 189 member states of the UN have expressed their commitment to achieve the MDGs by 2015. The MDGs are: (i) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; (ii) Achieve universal primary education; (iii) Promote gender equality and empower women; (iv) Reduce child mortality; (v) Improve maternal health; (vi) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases; (vii) Ensure environmental sustainability; and (viii) Develop a global partnership for development. As explained in the following paragraphs, nanotechnology may help Nepal achieve at least some of the above mentioned MDGs.

What is Nanotechnology?

Nanotechnology, sometimes shortened to "Nanotech", refers to a field whose theme is the control of matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally nanotechnology deals with structures 100 nanometers (10 -9) or smaller, and involves developing materials or devices within that size. In other words, a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. Dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nanometers are known as the nanoscale. The understanding and control of matter at dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications is within the discipline of nanotechnology. The Science and Engineering of Nanotechnology involve imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter at this nanoscale.

Unusual physical, chemical, and biological properties can emerge in materials at the nanoscale. These properties may differ in important ways from the properties of bulk materials and single atoms or molecules.

Nanotechnology has tremendous possibility to create many new materials and devices with numerous applications, such as in medicine, electronics, and energy production. However, nanotechnology raises issues as with the use of any new technology, including but not limited to the concerns about the toxicity and environmental impact of nanomaterials.

There is a lot of research going on around the world as to how nanotechnology could be used to solve problems of energy generation, new medications development, food production, drinking water and sanitation. The top three researchers in this field are the USA, Japan, and China. The number of nanotechnology patent applications from China ranks third in the world behind those of United States and Japan.

Studies of nanoscience and nanotechnology research continue to steadily grow around the world as both academics and industry professionals investigate new ways of making improved products more efficiently using this new technology. With the growth of research in this field, nanotechnology-related jobs in the engineering and biomedical fields will multiply. In the next, few decades nanoscience and nanotechnology will impact science and engineering in such a way that it will fundamentally help in restructuring technologies used for manufacturing, medicine, defense, energy production, environmental management, transportation, communication, education, and computation.

Energy Production and Storage

Energy production, and storage, along with creation of alternative fuels, is one of the areas where nanotechnology applications are most likely to benefit Nepalese people. Nano-structured materials are being used to build a new generation of solar cells, hydrogen fuel cells and novel hydrogen storage systems that will deliver clean energy. Moreover, recent advances in the creation of synthetic nano-membranes embedded with proteins are capable of turning light into chemical energy.

Using nanotechnology, unique three-dimensional solar cells that capture nearly all of the light that strikes them could boost the efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) systems while reducing their size, weight and mechanical complexity. The new 3D solar cells capture photons from sunlight sing an array of miniature "tower" structures that resemble high-rise buildings in a city street grid.

Because the tower structures can trap and absorb light received from many different angles, the new cells remain efficient even when the sun is not directly overhead.

In the existing flat solar cells, the photovoltaic coatings must be thick enough to capture the photons, whose energy then liberates electrons from the photovoltaic materials to create electrical current. Nevertheless, each mobile electron leaves behind a "hole" in the atomic matrix of the coating. The longer it takes electrons to exit the PV material, the more likely it is that they will recombine with a hole -- reducing the electrical current.

Because the 3D cells absorb more of the photons than conventional cells, their coatings can be made thinner, allowing the electrons to exit more quickly, reducing the likelihood that recombination will take place. That boosts the "quantum efficiency" - the rate at which absorbed photons are converted to electrons - of the 3D cells.

Nanoscience may be used to improve the efficiency of photovoltaic cells, creating cost-efficient conversion systems. It may help in effective solar power storage systems or even the generation of solar energy on a larger
scale.

Agriculture

Nepal could also benefit in the field of agriculture, where nanotechnology is developing a range of inexpensive nanotech applications to increase soil fertility and crop production. This will help farmers to increase the agricultural production thereby increase their income levels and improve the health of the people by decreasing malnutrition.

Nanotech materials are in development phase for the slow release and efficient dosage of fertilizers for plants and of nutrients and medicines for livestock. Other agricultural developments include nano-sensors to monitor the health of crops and farm animals and magnetic nano-particles to remove soil contaminants.

Water Treatment

A lot of people living in villages of Nepal have no access to clean drinking water. As a result, children as well as old people die each year from water-related diseases, such as diarrhea, cholera, and typhoid.

Nano-membranes and nano-clays are inexpensive, portable and easily cleaned systems that purify, and detoxify water more efficiently than conventional bacterial and viral filters. For example, this could help remove the arsenic prevalent in the terai region of Nepal. It is also possible to develop large-scale production of carbon nano-tube filters for water quality improvement. In addition, other water applications include systems (based on titanium dioxide and on magnetic nano-particles) that decompose organic pollutants and remove salts and heavy metals from liquids, enabling the use of heavily contaminated water for irrigation and drinking.

Medical Applications

Disease diagnosis and screening technologies include the "lab-on-a-chip", which offers major diagnostic functions of a medical laboratory, and other biosensors based on nano-sized tubes, wires, magnetic particles and semiconductor crystals (quantum dots). These inexpensive, hand-held diagnostic kits detect the presence of several pathogens at once and could be used for wide-range screening in small peripheral clinics. Moreover,
nanotechnology applications are in development that would greatly enhance medical imaging.

Drug delivery systems: including nano-capsules, dendrimers (tiny bush-like spheres made of branched polymers), and "buckyballs" (soccerball-shaped structures made of 60 carbon atoms) for slow, sustained drug release systems, characteristics valuable for countries such as Nepal without adequate drug storage capabilities and distribution networks. Nanotechnology could also potentially reduce transportation costs and even required dosages by improving shelf-life, thermo-stability and resistance to changes in humidity of existing medications. These are very important to preserve drug during summer when the temperature as well as the humidity are high.

Food Processing and Storage

Improved plastic film coatings for food packaging and storage that may enable a wider and more efficient distribution of food products to remote areas such as the far west part of Nepal. Antimicrobial emulsions made with nano-materials for the decontamination of food equipment, packaging of food; and nanotech-based sensors to detect and identify contamination would help in both transportation and storage of food.

Nanotechnology can obviously help Nepal in achieving some of the UN mandated MDGs within the stipulated period of 2015 in the next seven years. One example of how a new technology could be popular among people
very quickly is the use of cell phones in Nepal. Five years ago, when I visited Nepal, there was hardly anyone with the cell phones, yet when I went to Nepal last summer there were a lot of people with cell phones. It appeared that everyone was walking with a cell phone.

Dr. Khagendra Thapa is a Professor at Ferris State University, Big Rapids Michigan, USA and can be reached at Khagendra_Thapa@ferris.edu.

(Editor’s Note: Nepalis, wherever they live, as well as friends of Nepal around the globe are requested to contribute their views/opinions/recollections etc. on issues concerning present day Nepal to the Guest Column of Nepalnews. Length of the article should not be more than 1,000 words and may be edited for the purpose of clarity and space. Relevant photos as well as photo of the author may also be sent along with the article. Please send your write-ups to editors@mos.com.np)

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