Nanoparticles Are No Small Thing, say Authority VPs in Latest Arkansas Business

Wednesday, Aug 19, 2009

State's Universities Pioneer Nanotechnology
By Jamie Walden
Arkansas Business

Several higher education institutions in Arkansas are making significant strides in a technology that could soon become a ubiquitous component of products ranging from bed sheets to brain implants.

This groundbreaking advance - which could be the biggest thing since computers, one expert says - is based on something about 25,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair: the nanoparticle.

"Any application that you can think of, anything that's done today, is probably going to be impacted by nanotechnology," said Steve Stanley, vice president of commercialization at the Arkansas Science & Technology Authority. "The low-hanging fruit is just to add nanoparticles that have certain features to everything else. They'll put them in paint to help them resist fading, things like that. But eventually, it will impact everything."

The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the University of Central Arkansas at Conway and Arkansas State University at Jonesboro collaborate on a plethora of nanotechnology projects as part of a federal grant program called the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, the administrative arm of which is based in Little Rock.

Gail McClure, director of EPSCoR in Arkansas, said the most recent three-year grant allocated a total of $13.5 million, including state matches, to the colleges for nanotech research.