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Nanotechnology
Can molecular-scale engineering help to address the global energy challenge?
New energy sources and better use of conventional resources are needed to meet soaring world energy demand. At the same time, greenhouse gas emissions need to be curtailed. So surely this is no time to be thinking small? Sergio Kapusta, Shell Chief Scientist for Materials, would agree. He and his colleagues are thinking big about nanotechnology. More specifically, they are investigating exciting applications for nanotechnology in the energy industry that could help to address some of the major issues.
Kapusta notes: “A lot of things that are important to life, and to energy, happen at the molecular and atomic scales. There is a lot of hype about nanotechnology, and it is no silver bullet, but it holds real promise, which is why we are seriously interested in the topic.”
The US government's National Nanotechnology Initiative describes nanotechnology as the understanding and control of matter at dimensions of roughly 1-100 nanometres where unique phenomena enable novel applications.