High-tech value added exports through Nanotechnology

By Dhaneshi YATAWARA

"Through nanotechnology we want to make products manufactured under the Sri Lankan label to be high tech, high quality products." Converting exporting items to high tech goods is how countries like Korea achieved an advancement in economy. Doubling the nation's per capita income over the next six years and achieving a GDP growth of much greater than 8% will only be possible if sufficient investments (Public and Private) are made in research and technology. In addition, investing in Nanotechnology would help achieve the target of increasing high-tech value added exports from 1.5% to 10% by 2015, said Prof. Ravi Silva, Director of the Advance Technology Institute of the University of Surrey, UK.

Prof. Ravi Silva

With the success achieved at SLINTEC the next step would be NANCO. Scaling up the current Nanotechnology research and development activity at SLINTEC through NANCO and creating an environment for open innovations will support several initiatives outlined in the Mahinda Chinthana.

Knowledge hub

NANCO aims to develop a Nanotechnology Centre for Excellence along with other related centres in the future to help to centralise and establish a multi-faceted Science and Technology Park which will be a knowledge hub in Sri Lanka. The land allocations are already completed for the proposed park at Homagama.

NANCO is to position Sri Lanka as a leading destination for Nanotechnology research and development by creating a world-class innovation platform and contribute significantly to national economic development. As Prof. Silva who is involved in-depth to establish NANCO said this has five fold missions. It will aim at building a national innovation platform for technology-based economic development and help increase Sri Lanka's high-tech value added exports from 1.5% to 10% by 2015 through commercialization of Nanotechnology. Then it will collaborate with research institutes and universities to develop Sri Lanka's technology and research capability to a world-class standard and contribute to setting up a knowledge-based economy. Then NANCO will introduce nano aspects of leading technologies and industries to make Sri Lankan products globally more competitive and add value to Sri Lanka's natural resources. NANCO is to bring nanotechnology research and business enterprises together to give rise to a new world of possibilities and promote the growth of high-tech firms in Sri Lanka. Attracting expatriate Sri Lankan scientists is another mission of the NANCO.

Knowledge- based economy

Continued support to the NNI and investments in Nanotechnology will help Sri Lanka advance in to knowledge- based economy. Nanotechnology has positive impacts on the environment as well. The economic impact will not only be enjoyed by organizations but also the community at large. Hence, it falls within the larger area of sustainability - the triple bottom line. It is important that in this era of globalisation, one must have the strength to compete across the globe. Confining oneself on an economic system with subsidies would not help the entrepreneur's nor the nation's competitiveness. Nanotechnology based industries with 'more from less' concept and nano based technology-entrepreneurship will provide a robust basis for competing in global market.

"We need to find innovative ways to use Sri Lanka's rich natural resources for example the production of titanium dioxide pigment from ilmenite is extremely relevant to Sri Lankan condition," he added. Today the SLINTEC has developed methodologies to add value to several Sri Lankan mineral deposits and to create nano-materials. We are indeed living in an 'island of plenty' and uniqueness.

The positive response Sri Lankan scientists got from President Mahinda Rajapaksa during the very first presentation on Nanotechnology in 2005 was the greatest motivate behind the pioneering team. With the greatest support given by Prof. Vitharana at that time we were able to convince the Government of the relevance and importance of nanotechnology to the country, Prof. Silva said.

Today's world of science is fascinated by small wonders. As once the Nobel Prize winner Dr. Horst Stormer said, the nanoscale is more interesting than the atomic scale because the nanoscale is the first point where we can assemble something. Today the world of science focuses on this nanoscale - an area one billionth of a meter. Nanotechnology can be considered as dealing with anything measuring between 1 and 100 nanometres. It is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale.

Behaviour of elements

Nanotechnology is not something which is out of nature's way. Nature has perfected the science of manufacturing matter molecularly. Yet more research is in need to figure out the behaviour of elements as it can change at the nanoscale.

In this small world, gravity has become quite unimportant and is replaced by surface tension and Van der Waal's attractions when designing systems and machines.

As sizes get smaller, one would have to redesign some tools, because the relative strength of various forces would change. Nanotechnology is not just creating hot cups of coffee at the press of a button or immediately get teleported to the other side of a wall.

Today nanotechnology has become the common language among scientists of different fields. It is rapidly becoming an interdisciplinary field and biologists, chemists, physicists and engineers are all involved in the study of substances at the nanoscale.

Bringing the global hi-tech know-how to Sri Lanka, the Government has on the approval of a Cabinet paper presented by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2006. Thus resulted the National Nanotechnology Initiative pioneered by the Senior Minister of Research and Technology Prof. Tissa Vitharana. Five years later, SLINTEC - the Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology - was established as a successful Public-Private Partnership. It evidently proves the high potential of Nanotechnology in the local context.

This is where scientists from various disciplines daily meet and get the chance to share their expertise to solve crisis arising in their research. "The synergy of the two companies is a phenomenon that has never happened locally".

"This was the philosophy behind in establishing the Advance Technology Institute at the University of Surrey. Scientists had laboratories scattered all over the university premises and everyone working in a framed environment did not produce successful results. Therefore it was decided to put up one centre for all scientists to share their experience and to do research. As a result the Advance Technology Institute was set up," he explained.

"This 50:50 combination of public and private partnership has today become an extremely robust collaboration in the Sri Lankan science arena which gave brilliant results within a short period of time," said Professor Ravi Silva.

With the up-to-date achievements of SLINTEC the five patent applications filed with the United States Patent Trademark Office (PTO) within 15 months of its start of research is a major breakthrough. One of these researches which was on Slow Release Fertilizers was awarded the best innovation with a commercial Potential at the Science and Technology awards 2010. With cutting edge technology, this is the country's best-kept secret.

Sri Lanka has never really had this kind of science and technology infrastructure before. Nanotechnology is an expected future manufacturing technology that will make most products lighter, stronger, cleaner, less expensive and more precise by better understanding the molecular make-up of materials and products.