## 1 Introduction  
Organofunctional nano-silane technologies have been used in Europe for the protection of stone buildings for more than 150 years [1,2]. The application of various nano-silane products has been used to protect buildings against the climatic effects of moisture, providing a hydrophobic protective layer and preventing further decay due to chemical weathering. The initial work performed by scientists to develop protective products relied on trial-and-error testing and resulted in contradictorily results, as reported by various scientists. Eventually, it was concluded that the successful application of a silane-based protective product depends to a large extent on the compatibility of the nano-silane product with the \"type of stone\" as well as the \"condition of the stone\" to be treated [3]. The technology developed in the built environment, as well as the \"lessons learnt\", can find direct application and should form the basis for the successful introduction and treatment of available materials in road pavement engineering [4]. The potential impact of the use of nanotechnologies in the field of pavement engineering was identified more than a decade ago [5]. However, in practice, the introduction of applicable and proven nanotechnologies has been slow to receive acceptance. This scepticism in the pavement engineering fraternity has its origin in a constant flow of \"wonder\" products (commonly referred to as snake- oils) that have been introduced into the market by suppliers for the improvement of naturally available materials. These products have invariably been found wanting in practice, not meeting the anticipated results and leading to a general scepticism that is detrimental to the introduction of new technologies into the field of pavement material stabilisation. Both the suppliers of new products/technologies as well as the road pavement engineering fraternity are to blame for this situation. Pavement engineers mostly rely on archaic, empirically derived tests (some more than a hundred years old), not indicative of the scientific characteristics of materials [6]. These tests are found wanting in the assessment of new products and the evaluation of their true potential and limitations in terms of sound engineering requirements. In the same vein, suppliers of new products invariably lack a scientific basis and the data to support their claims, often using marketing agents with little engineering knowledge. This situation is very similar to what scientists in the built environment experienced more than 150 years ago with the development of stone protectors on a trial-and-error basis. Over the last few decades, considerable resources in pavement engineering have been allocated to the development of sound Mechanistic-Empirical design methods to improve the analysis of pavement structures. Transfer functions based on the stresses, strains and deformation characteristics of various materials have been developed to improve the scientific basis of pavement design, identifying failure mechanisms and developing failure theories for universal use and analysis. The same (with some notable exceptions such as in the field of asphaltic materials) cannot be said about the testing, evaluation and characterisation of the materials used in the construction of road pavement structures. Most of the granular material characterisation tests lack a scientific basis with little relation to potential bearing capacity and the theoretical analysis of pavement structures. This lack of sound engineering concepts for the characterisation of naturally available materials and the specification of engineering requirements in terms of basic physics requires urgent attention. The observation is not new.