Nanotechnology has awoken from its slumber. Just a few years ago every prediction of a new kind of material were greeted with a tired smile and dismissed as visions, sometimes quite nastily. In the meantime the tiny particles have reached the market, but hardly anyone noticed their arrival. No toothpaste would flow out of the tube so smoothly and no ketchup leave the bottle down to the last drop without the lubricant based on nanotechnology. It is also a blessing for the new generation of paints and protective coatings. Nanotechnology can also help to respond to the challenges of modern medicine. Finely dispersible iron nanoparticles, for example, that might be useful in medical imaging, are currently being tested in clinical trials at the teaching hospital Charité in Berlin. Euphoria has reached such a pitch that the US National Science Foundation is predicting a turnover of 1,000 billion dollars for 2016 and that figure does not even include the supply of secondary materials! It goes without saying that with so many apparent opportunities potential risks are forgotten or underestimated.

Karsten Wegner is keeping his feet planted firmly on the ground. "Many of the properties of nano-materials are more assumed than proven, and lots of them have not yet reached the stage of industrial production," says Wegner, who has a PhD in chemical engineering. After studying in Karlsruhe, Germany, he started to work on nanoparticles eight years ago at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, on particles, therefore, measuring from just 1 to 100nm (a nanometre is a billionth of a metre). His then boss, Professor Sotiris E. Pratsinis, was called to a Chair at ETH Zurich and Wegner came with him.

At the ETH Institute for Process Engineering (1) on the Sonneggstrasse he and his colleague, Wendelin Stark, then started looking for new nanoparticles that would act as chemical catalysts and investigating a number of further applications. The results of this research led to a so-called KTI project and the idea of founding a company. In February 2004, together with Wendelin Stark–in the meantime Professor at the ETH Institute of Chemical and Bioengineering Sciences and head of its Functional Materials Laboratory (2)–Karsten Wegner founded the company FlamePowders with headquarters in Schlieren (3).

Flame-aerosol pyrolysis: the method FlamePowders uses to produce nanoparticles. Picture: Karsten Wegner large

Young entrepreneur Karsten Wegner: With his company FlamePowders he achieved 4th place in the 2004 Venture competition. large

At the second NanoCase, a seminar organised by Nano-Cluster Bodensee (4), Wegner presented a number of industrial applications for nanoparticles. "Nanoparticles are special owing to their unique physical and chemical properties," explained the 32-year old engineering scientist, who until recently was a lecturer at ETH Zurich. "The proportion of atoms on the surface of a nano-particle is greater than that on the surface of materials in the macro world. This means that nano-particles have a lower smelting temperature and thus possess other mechanical, electronic and magnetic properties than macroscopic particles of the same material.“

"We can make use of these properties," says Wegner. Research was being carried out at ETH Zurich, for example, on a new, three-way catalytic converter for motor vehicles, as well as the use of nanoparticles in dentistry and fuel cells.

But that is not all. At ETH's Laboratory for Particle Technology the scientific basis is being thoroughly explored for the synthesis and production of nano-particles. In order to do this researchers are following the route of the production of particles in a flame reactor, which is cheaper and more environmentally friendly than other synthesising methods. "Primary materials, in the form of gas or liquid, are transformed into nanoparticles with the flame-aerosol reactor synthesis," explains Wegner. In highly precise and intensive work researchers at ETH Zurich have further developed the current method and found a new one at the same time: the flame-aerosol pyrolysis. "With this method we can produce nano-materials from almost any element. And the properties of the particles can be controlled very accurately, it's an ideal method," says Wegner.

FlamePowders is putting its money on this method, which is protected with three patents. With the production plant at no.11 Grabenstrasse in Schlieren the team of three with CEO Karsten Wegner can fill orders from customers of up to a tonne. The degree of purity reached is 99.9 per cent–a notable achievement that cannot always be achieved with other methods. The chemical industry is one of the first customers. There is huge potential in nanotechnology," sums up Wegner. "As an engineer, I have every faith in my products."