Container Top
Homes   Jobs   Cars   Shopping
Search

Events Calendar

EVENT SEARCH:

In This Section


Most Read Stories


Blogs:


Akron Law Café:
Gun Rights Spreading Like Wild Fire?

The Heldenfiles:
New "Bachelor"

Patrick McManamon:
Browns make a trade, and now Jamal Lewis is hurt too

Browns Bulletin:
Injury updates

Cleveland Browns:
Cleveland Browns: Team Acquires Defensive Back

Cleveland Indians:
Sizemore paces Tribe to 9-4 win over KC.

Akron Aeros:
Head hits multiple homers, Aeros score many runs & roster moves

Akron Zips:
Marshall is nation’s 39th best player

Varsity Letters:
Firestone graduate Mark Gangloff earns second gold medal

Kent State Sports:
The Sports Mix:
Cleveland Browns: Maybe It Was the Pants

Ohio Politics:
Remembering Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones

All Da King's Men:
What 60 Minutes Left Out Of The Plame Story

Blog of Mass Destruction:
Authenticity

HRLite House:
Cheers from Boston and APA - Detecting Lying

Akrocentric:
"Sunflower," a poem by Frank Steele

Akron Gamer:
Getting Funky

BokBluster:
Potty Humor

Ohio Travels with Betty:
We are coming from Michigan to take our kids to Sea World, but can't find any information, can you help?

Sound Check:
LeRoi Moore, Dave Matthews Band saxophonist dies

Tia's Trends:
Crescendo is for More than Just Music

Science scales down

Cleveland summit showcases wonders of nanotechnology

By Paula Schleis
Beacon Journal business writer

Alexis Abramson still runs into people who talk about nanotechnology as if it's some ethereal concept.


That's why Nano Week 2007 is so important, she said. Nanotechnology is here and now, and a national conference in Cleveland next week will highlight all of its weird and wonderful incarnations and applications.

''A lot of people still think it's science fiction, so we want to demonstrate what companies are doing successfully,'' she said.

Abramson is executive director of Nano-Network, which is co-hosting the week's main event, a five-day affair called the Nano App Summit, which will focus on the automotive, clean technology and defense sectors.

Other events include seminars for venture capitalists, a forum for manufacturers, and networking opportunities for everyone from marketing directors to researchers.

But no doubt many of the 400 registered participants will start their education at next Monday's ''Nano 101'' introductory course.

Abramson explains nanotechnology through the science of a common book.

A book is the size it is because that's what comfortably fits our hands.

The text is the size it is because it suits our eyes. Likewise, ''our world is engineered based on how big we are and the ability of our body parts to utilize the things around us,'' she said.

But there's no other reason a book can't be 25,000 times smaller, and ''we've gained this ability to see things at a smaller scale and it gives us a new perspective at engineering the world,'' she said.

Not only can material be made at an atomic level, quite often the properties change when something is scaled down.

The material might unexpectedly become a conductor of electricity, or generate heat differently, or create optical effects unlike its macroscale counterparts.

''So we ask, how can we use this to develop new systems that improve on existing products or invent new applications?'' Abramson said.

The ability to engineer products that can only be seen through an electron microscope has only come of age in the past few years, she said.

In 2006, Abramson was hired as a fellow by NorTech Northeast Ohio's nonprofit technology advocates to help spread the gospel.

She took a leave of absence from Case Western Reserve University, where she is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, to visit companies around the region and explain how they might benefit from nano advancements.

While the reception was ''overwhelmingly positive,'' Abramson said there was still some skepticism. There was a lot of hype about nanotechnology a decade ago, and some companies stuck their toes in the water to find it wasn't quite warm enough yet.

 

''They couldn't find the solution they were looking for, so there were some negative feelings about nanotechnology and its promise,'' she said.

Still, she met with about 30 companies, helping to brainstorm about how ongoing research might improve their products. And when the fellowship ended last June, Abramson stayed with NorTech as its vice president of technology innovation and as director of Nano-Network.

The lineup of speakers for the Nano App Summit includes representatives from Akron area companies like Goodyear, reXorce Thermionics, MemPro Ceramics, Ovation Polymers and NanoSperse.

NanoSperse is a start-up company, supported through the state's Third Frontier Project, using technology developed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base and the University of Dayton.

 

The company applies nano particles to polymers in a way that, basically, allows plastic to conduct heat and electricity the way metal does. That's something the aerospace industry is very interested in, as planes are increasingly made of composite materials, according to the company founder and president, Arthur Fritts.

Fritts will participate on a panel that discusses the research-to-commercialization process.

''The fact that this kind of event promotes that sort of dialogue is very healthy,'' he said.

 


Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com.

 

Alexis Abramson still runs into people who talk about nanotechnology as if it's some ethereal concept.

Get the full article here.


Story tools

Email  Email   Print  Print   Save  Save   Reprint  Reprint   Popular  Most Popular   Reprint  Subscribe

Share this story

AddThis Social Bookmark Button


Nanotechnology is the engineering of material at the microscopic scale. The material, when applied to more common products, can change what those products can do. How businesses can take advantage of nanotechnology is the subject of a weeklong national event in Cleveland.




 

Inside Ohio.com

FAMILY


Lower drinking age debated

College presidents urge lawmakers to consider change to curb binges

BOWL MEMORIES


Tell your Rubber Bowl tale

Help us celebrate the final season for the Zips stadium

ENTERTAINMENT


Like to bike? Try 8 days of events

City's first bicycle week will start with ceremony at new Towpath Trail bridge over Akron Innerbelt