Nanotechnology Can Play Vital Role in Forest Products Industries; Technology 'Roadmap' Released, Free Download Available.

(From AScribe)

MADISON, Wis. -- The future of the U.S. forest products industries, which employ some 1.1 million Americans and contribute more than $240 billion annually to the nation's economy, could depend on how well those industries embrace the emerging science of nanotechnology, according to a report just released by a panel of leading researchers from industry, government labs, and academic institutions.

The hundred-page report, titled "Nanotechnology for the Forest Products Industry: Vision and Technology Roadmap," can be read or downloaded for free from: www.nanotechforest.org. It will also be available on other websites including those of the USDA Forest Service's Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) (www.fpl.fs.fed.us) and the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI) ( www.tappi.org/content/pdf/nanotechnology_roadmap.pdf ). TAPPI also plans to publish a hard-copy version.

The report is based on presentations and discussion by some 110 researchers from North America and Europe, with an interest in wood, paper or other forest products, who gathered in Virginia last October to explore the possible role of nanotechnology -- the science of very small particles -- in the forest products industries.

The three-day workshop was co-chaired by Philip Jones of Imerys, a supplier of minerals to the paper industry, and Theodore Wegner, assistant director of FPL, the federal government's wood-utilization research center. The "Roadmap," so-called because it is intended to show where the forest products industry needs to go and how to get there, describes the U.S. forest products industry as a mature, somewhat-stagnant energy-intensive industry that is facing new global competition. The report, the first comprehensive look nanotechnology for the U.S. forest products industry, suggests that the infusion of nanotechnology could lead to new and improved products and improved, more efficient manufacturing processes.

"Nanotechnology represents a major opportunity to generate new products and industries in the coming decades," "Roadmap" says. Potential uses of nanotechnology in forest products, as identified in "Roadmap," include development of intelligent wood- and paper-based products that could incorporate built-in nanosensors to measure forces, loads, moisture levels, temperatures, or pressures, or detect the presence of wood-decay fungi or termites.

But according to "Roadmap," nanotechnology can have an even greater impact.