Nanotechnology & Environment
Nanotechnologies hold great promise for creating new means of detecting pollutants, cleaning polluted waste streams, recovering materials before they become wastes, and expanding available resources. Like all emerging technologies with great promise, the nanotechnology and nanochemistry industries will present new challenges in ensuring that environmental risks are properly managed. The Energy & Environmental Systems Institute has been instrumental in the formation of two major national research entities addressing issues concerning potential effects of emerging nanotechnologies on environmental systems:
Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science & Technology
Center for Biological & Environmental Nanotechnology
EESI has also played a pioneering role in identifying key research issues surrounding the implementation of environmental nanotechnologies and anticipating possible environmental impacts associated with nanomaterials. Indeed, the research agenda for examining environmental implications of nanotechnologies was publicly articulated for the first time at an international symposium organized by EESI in December 2001, with a follow-up conference in December 2005.
