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October 2005

Nanotechnology Enabling Advances For War Fighters

By Grace Jean

The science of manipulating molecules and atoms holds promise for many industries. Military scientists say nanotechnology will have the most impact upon the individual soldier.

“The single most dramatic change will be at the war-fighter level, simply because we haven’t helped the war-fighter nearly as much as we’ve helped other things,” said James Murday, who heads the chemistry division at the Naval Research Laboratory. “Take a tank from World War I versus a tank now. There’s no comparison,” he said. Big platforms like those tanks, as well as planes and ships, have benefited from numerous technological advancements. But the individual war-fighter has not benefited as much, he said.

Researchers are working to advance the individual war-fighter using nanotechnology—from improving the meals he eats and the clothing he wears to enhancing the devices and weapons he uses and the armor in which he fights.

Scientists at the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass., are using nanocomposites to improve the packaging system for meals ready to eat (see related story).

“Just as those materials are good at preventing oxygen from reaching food, other nanocomposites are effective at preventing the permeation of chemical war agents through materials and films,” said Michael Sennett, a research chemist at the center.

“What nanotechnology may be able to do that other technologies cannot is to put a large number of functional capabilities into one piece of material without one thing interfering with another,” he said.

For instance, making uniforms water repellant and breathable, with some odor control technology, as well as protection from chemical and biological agents.

Soldier conditions run the gamut from the desert to the arctic and the tropic, said Sennett. “You’d really like to have a material system for your uniforms that was comfortable in all those environments,” he said, such as repelling rain when it’s raining and yet have it be breathable so that soldiers are not sweating, as they would be in a piece of conventional rain gear.

“We’re seeing indications for nanotechnology to help bring about this ultimate versatility in a uniform material and really make it very multifunctional,” said Sennett.

At the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researchers have developed a new semiconducting organic polymer that increases the chemical detection of explosives such as TNT.

When exposed to ultraviolet light, the polymer unleashes a stream of light particles through a process called lasing. TNT molecules bind to the polymer, preventing lasing from occurring under ultraviolet light exposure.

“This polymer has a lock-and-key mechanism,” said Karen Gleason, associate director of the ISN. “You just need one molecule to quench the fluorescence.”

The researchers previously developed an explosives detection system that has been commercialized by Nomadics, Inc., an Oklahoma-based company that works with the institute. That system, called Fido, rivals the detection ability of a trained dog.

The new polymer would greatly enhance the sensitivity of Fido, said researchers on the project. It has undergone realistic testing, said Gleason. Nomadics is commercializing the product and has already sent prototypes to Iraq, she said.

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