EU project targets small materials
The European Commission is providing 24 million euro for a Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) Integrated Project aimed at developing a new range of nanoscale smart plastics materials in a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly way. These materials will be applied to a wide range of products. The project is called NAIMO, which stands for 'Nanoscale integrated processing of self-organising multifunctional organic materials', and is unique in that it will 'transform a plastic film substrate into a multifunctional composite,' explains project coordinator Professor Yves Henri Geerts from the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium. This will be achieved by combining organic nanoelectronics with solution-based additive manufacturing techniques such as printing. 'NAIMO will contribute to the development of new products, such as organic electronic chips and displays, sensors, flexible solar cells and magnetic structures. These will directly benefit health, welfare, security and the environment, while improving the competitiveness of European industry,' added Professor Geerts. As nanotechnology requires a multidisciplinary approach, NAIMO brings together 22 European partners from a variety of backgrounds. Engineers, chemists and physicists from universities, research centres as well as leading EU chemicals and electronics companies, and specialist small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) will all work together on this project. Thanks to this combined expertise, the NAIMO project hopes to bring about innovations leading to breakthroughs in the field of nanofabrication, thus paving the way for the efficient exploitation of the potentials of nanotechnology. One of the other main purposes of this project is to learn about 'the interplay of structure and electrical and chemical properties at the molecular level, and to develop modelling capabilities,' revealed the consortium in a statement. Stuart Evans, chief executive officer of Plastic Logic, a plastic electronics innovator, and another of the partners in the project, concluded that: 'EU support for projects like NAIMO will help ensure we will be the winners at the end of the [nanotechnology] race, not just early front-runners.'