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Nanotechnology and Homeland Security

New Weapons for New Wars

ByDaniel RatnerMark A.Ratner

Presented bySrivatsan Ramanujam

Date: 06-Feb-2004

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The New Battlespace

• The Changing Face of War

• Weapons of Mass Destruction• The Challenge• The Solution

• Detection• Protection• Remediation

• The Modern Soldier• A coat of many colors• The Man-Machine Interface

• Better, Faster, Tougher and Smarter

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Homeland Security

• The State of the Nation

• Hardening the Hearts of Cities

• Smelling Smoke

• First Response

• Human Repair

• The Information War• High Performance Computing• Cryptography

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Changing Face of War

• During the cold war, Russia and the US were reluctant to fight or dispute directly since they felt matters might escalate out of control. So they in turn trained and armed local insurgents and armies in nations like Vietnam, Afghanistan, Cuba, Korea, Iraq and Iran.

• Public Sentiment in American Changed since 1945 – Both Domestic and Enemy Causalities-a concern

• The greatest change that influenced the face of war is not Geographic, Political or Psychological, but it was Economic!

• Three groups/organizations- DoD (Department of Defense), DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and Office of Naval Research have issued grand challenges that must be overcome by military to meet its mission.

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Weapons of Mass DestructionThe “Challenge”

• Chemical and Biological weapons

• WWI- the beginning: Blister Gas (Mustard gas), nerve gas etc

• Today: RICIN ,SARIN etc.

• Chemical Weapons are made from common materials. E.g. RICIN is made from Castor Beans.

• No device to detect these chemical/biological weapons (nuclear weapons can be detected)

• Spectroscopy – to detect chemical weapons, uses a sample’s adsorption, scattering and other interactions, at particular frequencies of light to develop a chemical finger print. But this method requires reasonable amount of lab space.

• Bio-agents – never easy, takes lot of time to detect!, that which should not happen in a battle field.

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The “Solution” – Enter Nanotechnology

• Three steps: Detection, Protection and Remediation

Detection: Lab-on-a-Chip- are completely chemical or biological laboratories including chemical reactor cells, sample storage, micro or Nano-scale channels.

• Companies: Nanosphere and Micro Sensor Systems – working on bio-toxin detection, but the size of the instrument is the size of a laptop - getting smaller

• Companies: Agilent and Affymetrix have developed Gene-chips (sensors) for analysis.

• How can gene-chips be used for detecting toxins?

• How can a soldiers uniform be made with such fingernail sized chips?

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Protection: To protect immediately after detecting toxins.

• Nanotechnology enhanced fabrics that are totally resistant to the penetration of liquids.

• Companies: Nano-Tex, whose fabric is used in Khaki Pants sold by Eddie Bauer and others

• Nanotech fabrics – combines the properties of comfortable cotton fibers and repelling liquids.

Remediation: Act or process of correcting a fault or deficiency

• If an area is contaminated with chemical or biological toxins, it must be cleaned up in a process commonly called Remediation

• Materials surface area is proportional to the reactivity

• Half ounce nanoparticle has a surface area of larger than a football field.

• Can be sprayed or applied that would start breaking down the chemical or biological agents.

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The Modern Soldier

• Ancient Greek soldiers carried 70 pounds of weight each (artillery)

• Even today a soldier has to carry radio equipment, GPSs etc in addition to their weapons and body armor.

• US army has spent $50 million already, creating a center for Soldier Nanotechnologies at MIT and research still continue

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A coat of many colors

• It is necessary to minimize the damage a soldier sustains in an attack.

• One approach: Improving Kevlar, the fabric used to make most bullet proof vests.

• Kevlar is a polymer whose shape is rigid as opposed many other polymers.

• University of Texas-Dallas – Ray Baughman’s Group incorporate nanotube fibers into an open-weave cloth that is more than 17 times tougher than Kevlar.

• Researchers at MIT : exploring a potential of making an uniform that not only reacts to chemical or biological toxins, but can stiffen and act as ballistic threats such as bullets.

• Issue of hurts/wounds in the battlefield that go unattended resulting to be fatal

• Nanotechnology sensors can be woven into fabrics that would look for hemoglobin. Along with this the tiny labs could also contain supplies of antiseptics.

• Groups like Institute of New Materials, Germany has demonstrated using biocidal nanoparticles to keep medical equipment such as hearing aid sterile

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Better, Faster, Tougher and Smarter

•Nanotechnology will also make vehicles faster.

•Argonide Corporation produces Alex, a rocket fuel additive based on nanoparticles of aluminum.

•Alex increases the efficiency of burning hydrocarbon fuels like kerosene and could have applications for jet fuels.

•NASA engineers propose using nanotechnology-based coatings to make the skin of a new spacecraft almost friction free, reducing heat from reentry.

•They are also considering the idea of self-healing materials that can start to repair themselves when they are damaged (like human skin).

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Homeland Security

The State of the Nation

• Security at stake – A world tainted by terrorism

• Buildings likely to be targeted can and should participate in their own defense.

• Although office buildings have been targeted, more critical infrastructure like water stations, mail sorting offices, telecommunication offices etc often go unprotected.

• Best way to defend against attack is prevent the attack from happening

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Hardening the hearts of cities

• Sensor technology can be used in inspecting the vehicles entering a building – effective?

• Recent terrorist attacks have been explosive attacks in large buildings.

• Consider structural issues – Buildings use a flexible central mast to support it.

• Constructing these masts of nanocomposite materials or using nanocomposites to replace steel could significantly improve building protection

• Explosion cause damage in 2 ways: blast concussion and heat (WTC collapse)

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Smelling Smoke

• For high-raised buildings, if nanosensors were installed, possibility of contamination can significantly be reduced.

• During day-to-day operations, these detectors and sensors would be low cost and low maintenance

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First Response

• Refers to police, firefighters, paramedics and all other emergency workers who represent the front line of defense in case of a terrorist attack within the country

•Nanotechnology also has some specialty applications for first responders

•US Global Nanospace’s Blast-X can be integrated into wall panels to significantly reduce the effect of an explosion. They might be used as retardants in trucks, carrying cases and even specially modified armor.

•Photo catalytic Self-cleaning nanolayers (PSC) consist of a nano-thin layer of material (like Silver Titania) that can break down various harmful contaminants when exposed to light.

•PSC has already been developed by GE Lighting, Pilkington Glass and few other groups in Japan.

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Human Repair

• Based on human-machine interface.

• Human repair can greatly accelerate the process of healing

• Research done by Stupp Group, Northwestern University consists of injecting the site of a fracture with small molecules that assemble themselves into bone-like fibers that bridge a fracture.

• The self-assembly of these fibers from the liquid can take just seconds, and as soon as it is place, healing can begin.

• Results - fast healing!!

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The Information War

The information war takes place at many levels, including intelligence efforts before a confrontation, identifying enemies positions, cyber-warfare, and protecting lines of communication

High-Performance Computing

• The first and most obvious influence of nanotechnology.

• Moore’s I law explained as rapid exponential growth of density of transistors on a computer chip as time passes by.

• Moore’s less cited second law (to compound I law) states that chip fabrication facilities double in cost with each chip generation.

• By 2010 we might not only start seeing the decline of semi- conductors but fabrications costs would have reached $25-$50 billion!!!

• At this time Higher performance computing will only be possible using Nanotechnology.

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Cryptography

•Code-breaking – essential to any serious information gathering, to intercept terrorist communications or enemy transmissions.

•Quantum computing is one solution that could turn the mathematics of code-breaking on its head.

•Quantum computing relies on quantum physics by taking advantage of certain quantum physics properties of atoms or nuclei that allow them to work together as quantum bits, or qubits, to be the computer's processor and memory.

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Recently…..Recently…..

Ricin Scare (Ricin Scare (04-Feb-200404-Feb-2004) – Traces of deadly toxin “Ricin” was found in ) – Traces of deadly toxin “Ricin” was found in Senate Majority Leader Bill First’s office’s mail room. (CNN)Senate Majority Leader Bill First’s office’s mail room. (CNN)

16-Dec-2003: “….homeland security may not benefit from nanotechnology's potential unless government funding lays the groundwork for the private businesses that could produce new defense products…” (SFO Chronicle)

15-Dec-2003: Nanotechnology and Homeland Security Forum

03-Dec-2003: President Bush Signs Nanotechnology Research and Development Act

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Special thanks to…..Special thanks to…..

Dr. Mark Ratner, Department of Chemistry, Northwestern UniversityDr. Mark Ratner, Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University

Ms. Heather Fox, Prentice Hall Publications.Ms. Heather Fox, Prentice Hall Publications.Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference:Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference:Prentice Hall PTR, copyright 2004, ISBN 0131453076Prentice Hall PTR, copyright 2004, ISBN 0131453076

for permitting me to use the images from their textbook for my for permitting me to use the images from their textbook for my presentation today!presentation today!

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Reference:

“Nanotechnology and Homeland Security” – Daniel Ratner, Mark Ratner, Chapter 3, 4, Prentice Hall PTR; 1st edition (October 22, 2003)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/02/04/ricin.preparedness.ap/index.html

http://www.bayareananoforum.org/dec15event.htm

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/12/16/BUGHJ3NTIA1.DTL

Presentation Files Uploaded

.PPT and .PDF report are located @

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~s2ramanu/603_NT/presentation

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“ The Biggest advances are still three, five, and upto ten years away. “

-Daniel Ratner