In
today’s world I think we are sometimes overwhelmed and taken over by the spin
and the buzz words – nano-anything, ‘smart’, sustainability, and of course
‘green’. I am not opposed to these terms – they are good – but I am opposed to
their inaccurate use, to the hype that is sometimes associated and not
warranted, and to their exploitive overuse.
I have noticed a growing trend in the industry to use these terms rather
loosely. When I go to a conference on nanotechnology I expect that to be the
topic of the papers – same is true for a conference on smart coatings. But
oftentimes we see a smattering of a lot of other ‘fill’, which is not what the
subject matter was supposed to be. Nanotechnology should be dealing with
particle sizes ranging from 0.1 to 100 nanometers. Smart coatings are those
that respond to external stimuli of some sort – hence the name ‘smart’. A smart
coating may be designed so that function and response can be switched on and
off. The two terms, nano and smart, are not often interchangeable. Smart
coatings do not necessarily employ nanoparticles, and the use of nanotechnology
does not necessarily define a smart coating.