Common attributes of all fields of nanotechnology are low exploitation of resources and smallness of scale, which means low energy demands. These factors are of great importance to the creation of a sustainable society. However, nanotechnology also has great potential to benefit our environment directly, in terms of technologies for environmental protection and restoration.

We should also not overlook the secondary environmental benefits that nanotechnology will likely bring.

For example, our basic approach to manufacturing will likely shift in emphasis from top-down to bottom-up processes, giving birth perhaps to a new approach based on the incorporation and exploitation of the mechanisms behind such natural phenomena as self-assembly. Advances in fields that make use of quantum properties are also likely to radically transform the digital mechanisms that we are currently exploiting.

The fact that biomechanisms are likely to be applied in many fields of nanotechnology is also significant, since this will in turn open up possibilities for the exploitation in industry of the mechanisms for efficient energy use and environmental adaptation found in living organisms.

By advancing our fundamental understanding of the substances and phenomena that comprise our world, nanotechnology research will furnish us with much new knowledge for the protection and restoration of the natural environment. This is an even more important side effect of such research.

♦ Nanotechnology's Promise for Environmental Protection