Materials Made of Tiny Particles Finally Achieve Their Big Promise

• ATP funding enables a 25,000-fold increase in production of materials made of nanosized particles and a 20,000-fold reduction in cost per gram.

• Sunscreens made with these materials already are on the market, offering increased protection levels.

• Tests of prototype products made with these materials show that mechanical seals gain up to 10-fold increases in service life and industrial catalysts become up to four times more active.

Materials containing nanosized particles (less than 100 billionths of a meter in size) finally are achieving their promise as ingredients in superior commercial products as a result of early support for the development of basic processing technology from NIST’s Advanced Technology Program (ATP). Nanoscale materials long have been exalted by scientists as important new technologies because they often exhibit superior chemical, mechanical, electronic, magnetic, or optical properties. Until now, however, it has been impossible to produce these materials in economical quantities or engineer them for high-performance applications. The ATP funding enabled Nanophase Technologies Corp., a small company near Chicago, to scale up its production from 10 grams of material per day at $1,000 per gram to the current capacity of 100 tons per year at 5 cents per gram. The process makes metal, ceramic, or composite particles that are nearly spherical, close to uniform in size, free of chemical residues, and loosely clustered, enabling the engineering of materials with specific attributes such as high strength or a particular color.

The ATP funding also was used to refine and demonstrate a process for shaping nanoscale ceramics into parts quickly and economically, without machining. The company president credits the ATP with helping Nanophase attract major industry collaborators and millions of dollars in venture capital funding, leading to an agreement to distribute the materials in more than 300 countries. The materials are used in a number of commercial products, including cosmetics and skin-care sprays and powders. Independent tests show that sunscreens containing nanocrystalline titania (a non-irritating alternative to sun-blocking chemicals) provide higher SPF protection using less material by weight than do conventional products, with no skin-whitening effect. Nanophase began making commercial quantities of material in late 1996 and reported $2.24 million in sales for the first nine months of 1997. The company has grown from 2 to 61 employees and has more than a dozen industry customers and research collaborators for applications such as semiconductor polishing slurries, ceramic armor, parts for medical devices, and industrial catalysts.

ATP funding: $944,000
Non-ATP funding: $2,055,000

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August 1998