Presenter Peter Rowsthorn, from ABC's Can We Help?, drives up in a red open-top sports car.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
Hi. Don't exactly know what a sports car has to do with nanotechnology, but, hey, I don't care! But I knew a man who would know and I was off to meet him, in a little glass box, being pushed out the side of the Eureka Tower, 88 floors above the busy city streets!
In a glass-walled elevator running up the side of the skyscraper, Peter nervously takes the hand of Dr Peter Binks. Suddenly the opaque floor becomes clear glass, revealing the enormous drop below.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
Not scary at all… for me (!)
The two men gaze through the floor of the elevator.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
Oh, that's a bit wrong, isn't it? How is this nanotechnology?
DR PETER BINKS:
This is for surfaces. What you've got is normal glass, but you've, actually, formed it so you've got a little layer in between that you can control whether it's opaque or whether it is clear. That layer, is a thin layer of an emulsion.
Dr Peter Binks, CEO Nanotechnology Vic, is interviewed in an office.
DR PETER BINKS:
That emulsion, if you don't have an electric current across it, has these randomly oriented liquid crystals within there and therefore appears opaque. But if you apply a very small potential across it, the liquid crystals immediately align and the whole thing becomes transparent.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
There are a lot of windows in the city, and this technology has huge implications for the way they are heated and cooled.
Peter sits next to a refrigerator.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
Just think of the applications. A fridge…when it switches, you can see what's inside your fridge. Then you don't have to open the door. Genius!
The door of the refrigerator changes from opaque to transparent.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
They've done that… they've done that already.
Computer-generated animation of microscopic balls gathering on a surface.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
Nanotech deals with things around a billionth of a metre small. But just how small is that compared to, say, a human hair?
Peter and Dr Binks chat in the glass elevator.
DR PETER BINKS:
That's about 80,000 nanometres, across… is a human hair. Oh, goodness me, that's small!
PETER ROWSTHORN:
OK, I came here in a fancy car… I have no idea what that has to do with nanotechnology, mate.
DR PETER BINKS:
Well, the auto industry is very sophisticated and your modern car has a whole lot of different technologies in there.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
Peter explained how, thanks to nanotechnology, the bumpers were strong, but incredibly light and how nanotech was revolutionising car paint.
Interview with Dr Binks in an office.
DR PETER BINKS:
So what the paint manufacturers have done, is they have put layers of polymers in there which will actually tend to flow back and close-up any nick.
Peter stands next to his sports car holding a plate containing flour and water.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
If you scratch your car, it heals itself. Like the principle of this cornflour and water experiment. Look… Scratch and heal.
Peter runs his finger across the watery cornflour. A line opens but then seals as the cornflour flows back in.
DR PETER BINKS:
In ten years time, when everybody does this, they won't be able to believe that we lived in a world where people had cars that scratched. They'll think that was silly.
Computer-generated images of various nanoparticles aligning themselves in different ways.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
This happens because when you work with materials on such a small scale, the properties and behaviours of those materials, change in new and interesting ways. Some of the most exciting applications are in the medical world.
Peter stands in a doctor's surgery.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
If you're not keen on injections — and who is — they could be a thing of the past. They're developing a nano-patch.
Peter holds up a glass square with a bandaid inside it.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
Drugs via the patch. Stick it on your skin.
Peter places the glass square under his shirt, on top of his shoulder, where it bulges against the fabric.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
See? I mean, the technology isn't that good yet. It'll get better. Presumably flatter, in the end… but gee, not bad.
Animation of a metallic object floating inside a body.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
They already have the technology for tiny cameras to go into the bloodstream to report on a patient's condition. And it's hoped tiny machines will be able to target single, diseased cells, leaving healthy ones alone!
The metal object floating in the bloodstream grasps a cell and disintegrates it with an electrical current.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
But wait, there's more! There'll be clothes that will adjust to fit you perfectly and never need washing, incredibly effective sunscreens, solar cells that can be printed on an ink jet printer, and that's not all — self-cleaning toilet bowls that nothing can stick to!
Peter crouches next to a fish tank.
PETER ROWSTHORN:
And… kids, we might be able to get a fish tank now. Self-cleaning glass.
DR PETER BINKS:
It's a revolution, but it's not a revolution that occurs overnight and you have sudden dramatic changes to society. 30 years ago there was no such thing as the Internet, now the Internet is part of our life. And my expectation is, that with nanotechnology, in 30 years time, we'll have a whole lot of new materials that we take for granted, that will be a very important part of the way in which we live.