Big business with small things
Some experts projected the 2015 worldwide market potential for nanotechnologies to approach 2'500 billion US$. These figures cover the development of new products as well as the improvement of existing products in medicine, chemistry, electronics, IT, optical industry, automotive industry, textiles, environment, energy and construction technologies.
Nanomaterials offer huge benefits in the industrial production in terms of process optimisation and the reduction of costs. E.g., the development of new materials can significantly prolong the lifetime of machinery or devices by improving their durability.
Green Nanotechnology
From an ecological point of view nanotechnology will provide many benefits. Thanks to nano-optimised composite materials there will be materials which are more stable for the automotive and aviation industry. This will subsequently reduce fuel consumption.
Nanotechnology will account to better and more efficient use and storage of renewable energy from solar or geothermal technology.
Nano in consumer products
There are already a lot of consumer products on the market. In the USA there are more than 1'000. In Switzerland the two largest retail companies (Migros, Coop) have more than 60 consumer products on the market.
Most of the products belong to cosmetics, textiles, home and garden and sportmaterials. It can be assumed that the number and variety of nanoproducts will further increase in the future.
