UO innovation advances science of nanotechnology.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

A newly patented process developed at the University of Oregon could help push an emerging science based on extremely tiny objects into the big time.

UO chemistry professor Jim Hutchison developed a new way to create gold nanoparticles - tiny particles containing as few as 100 individual atoms - that not only eliminates the use of two highly toxic and volatile chemicals but also produces more particles more quickly at less cost. The innovation could help speed the development of new products that use nanoparticles and position the UO and a spinoff company as leading suppliers of the versatile substance.

"Instead of taking a week to make a certain amount of material, we can make that in a few hours now," Hutchison said.

The innovation is an outgrowth of the university's trailblazing work in `green' chemistry, the development of new processes that dramatically cut the use of highly toxic and environmentally damaging chemicals in chemistry classes and industry. Hutchison and his colleagues were the first to develop green techniques for university courses.

Applying the same idea to nanotechnology, Hutchison came up with a process that eliminates diborane gas and benzene from the production of gold nanoparticles. Diborane gas can auto-ignite at just above room temperature and both it and benzene are highly toxic.

Gold nanoparticles are one of the basic building blocks of nanotechnology, a science that focuses on objects only a billionth of a meter in size. At the nano scale, the number of human hairs laid side by side between two lines marking the 10-yard lines on a football field is about equal to the number of one-nanometer particles that could be laid across the width of a single human hair.

At that level, materials begin to behave much differently than at the macro scale and display electrical and optical properties that researchers believe can be used to create a whole new class of useful products and devices. Nanoparticles already are being used in some medical diagnostic tools, and new uses in biology, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and other areas are being researched.

The process developed by Hutchison can produce nanoparticles about 1.5 nanometers in size containing about 100 atoms of gold. They are indistinguishable from particles made using the previous method and cost only a fraction of that method's $300,000 a gram.

"We used to make the same particles the same way everybody else did, and when you see the hazards and and complexities of that method, it's easy to see why it costs that much," Hutchison said.

"Of course, we needed multiple grams of material to do our studies, and we didn't want to spend millions of dollars to do that."

But the UO isn't the only beneficiary of the discovery. A cheaper, safer and faster source of nanoparticles means more people will be able to do research with them, and the more people doing research, the sooner the promise of nanotechnology will bear fruit, Hutchison said.

What's more, the process means that the much-hyped nanotechnology boom, when it comes, will be much more environmentally friendly from the beginning.

"This is a new industry that is supposed to be a trillion-dollar business by 2015, according to what the National Science Foundation has said, and it will influence every aspect of our lives," Hutchison said. "What better time than now to make sure it's developed in an environmentally responsible way. It's much easier than waiting until it's already developed and then trying to fix it."

Hutchison said talks already are under way with entrepreneurs interested in creating a spinoff business that would license the UO patent to make nanoparticles. They could then be marketed to companies pursing commercial uses for nanotechnology.

The new process also has the potential to be ramped up to produce larger quantities of nanoparticles, another hurdle that needs to be cleared before the nano sweepstakes really gets under way. And with the patent for that process in hand, the UO could have a sizable stake in whatever product emerges as the first big winner in the nanotech race.

"What better place to be when that winner is found," Hutchison said.