Nano Effort Adds Sustainable Design

The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), an effort to coordinate nanotech research and development among 25 federal agencies, has tacked sustainable design to its list of signature initiatives. The move is intended to promote federal investments in informatics, such as the development of models, simulation tools, and databases, to better predict the properties and behavior of nanoscale materials. It is expected to accelerate the commercialization of nanotechnology products while maximizing the benefits and minimizing the risks, according to NNI. In particular, the NNI sustainable design initiative seeks to establish best practices for data management and sharing. The new effort joins three other NNI signature initiatives: solar collection and conversion, sustainable nanomanufacturing, and nanoelectronics. The sustainable design initiative is also expected to benefit the Materials Genome Initiative. The effort is the first to affect several federal interagency initiatives.