Nanomaterials find their way to industry
Advanced nanomaterials have already become an integral part of industry and are increasingly being integrated in everyday products from medical equipment to textiles. Europe has been a pioneer in nanotechnology, and ensuring its primacy in this respect can help the continent maintain its competitiveness in the global market. This was the objective of the EU-funded project NANO ROAD SME. The project developed technology roadmaps for exploiting nanomaterials in the health, automotive, aeronautics and energy sectors in order to strengthen small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in this respect. Subsequently, the innovative pilot project helped SMEs integrate the latest research results on nanomaterials in their commercial vision to manufacture superior products. The roadmaps provided a list of appropriate nanomaterials for each industrial application, giving a much needed boost to SMEs. These roadmaps also helped estimate time to market and outlined the required research and development (R&D) capacity of the business. NANO ROAD SME built the roadmaps by exploiting a database with over 100 nanomaterials developed under a previous EU-funded project. It developed the resulting roadmapping tool based on a survey of over 300 SMEs in Europe, as well as workshops, expert interviews and research data. SMEs that find themselves in the decision-making phase in developing a new product are set to benefit greatly from the roadmap in their field. The database and corresponding roadmaps represent a cutting-edge instrument to support innovation and render industry more competitive in the relevant sectors.
