Houston has the medical center, and that will be helpful in nanoscale research, Smalley says. The sort of thing that goes on in living systems is more relevant than silicon. ATOM BY ATOM Nanotechnology will save huge amounts of energy in manufacturing by arranging individual atoms precisely to produce the desired product. Explains Rocky Angelucci, of Zyvex Corp., a Richardson-based company developing molecular assemblers, the robot arms for building things atom by atom. Michelangelo sculpted from the top down.
Nanotechnology enables precise manufacturing from the bottom up.
Nano processes will then convert waste products into natural materials. The nanotechnology of the 21st Century will spawn devices capable of cleaning up the mess left over from 20th Century technology in the air, water, and soil. Tiny nanorobots will explore for oil. There is a great market for very small, very uniform filters in applications such as separating oil from water. High-quality nanofilters could lead to great cost savings in the petrochemical industry because 80 to 90 percent of refining costs are in separation.