My job, besides organizing the event, was to make a bridge between these two groups. It's not hard to do. Many of the problems associated with water are related to removing nanoscale materials such as salts, pollutants or viruses, using nanoscale materials such as membranes and porous materials.
Companies such as Inframat and Agonide are both working on nanofibres which have great potential for water filtration, especially in the removal of pollutants such as arsenic from wells in the north-eastern US and the Ganges delta. Nanosight showed off a system that provides real-time detection of waterborne viruses and particles, down to around 10 nm.
Kevin McGovern of KX Industries unveiled a low-cost filter able to decontaminate drinking water. Meanwhile Eric Mayes of Nanomagnetics revealed the use of the protein ferritin, which the firm is also developing for data-storage applications, to enhance osmosis in water desalination. A fuller report will be published on the Cientifica and Club of Amsterdam websites in a few weeks.
The following day at the European Energy Venture Fair in Zurich we discussed investing in energy, something that oil prices of $50 a barrel have helped steer in the direction of nanotechnology. A number of companies working on nanotech-related alternative energy, from Konarka and Nanosolar in the US to the UK's Hydrogen Solar, have announced significant breakthroughs in recent weeks.
Two themes became apparent. Firstly, that the energy and water industries are very closely related. Up to a third of the cost of a desalination plant is energy (spent forcing water through membranes). If this is to be the preferred solution, as it already is from Israel to Singapore, then we need to crack the problem of renewable energy. Secondly, materials are key. Nanotechnology is all about materials, whether we are trying to produce dendrimer-based treatments for HIV or controlling the size and shape of pores in a filtration membrane with greater accuracy.
NanoWater was a great start: by the end of the day the two communities were exploring areas of common interest. But this is just a first step and the longer-term solutions will be found through ongoing dialogue, something that NanoWater will enable.