Tag Archives: anti-counterfeiting

Counterfeiting olive oil, honey, wine, and more

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This seems like the right thing to post on April Fool’s Day (April 1, 2019) as the upcoming news item concerns fooling people although not in a any friendly, amusing way.. More pleasantly, the other story I’m including holds the possibility of foiling the would-be adulterators/counterfeiters.

The problem and blockchain anti-counterfeiting measures

Adulterating or outright counterfeiting products such as olive oil isn’t new. I’m willing to bet the ancient Greeks, Romans, Persians, Egyptians, and others were intimately familiar with the practice. It seems that 2019 might see an increase in the practice according to a March 22, 2019 article by Emma Woollacott for BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) news online,

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“Fraud in the olive oil market has been going on a very long time,” says Susan Testa, director of culinary innovation at Italian olive oil producer Bellucci.

“Seed oil is added maybe; or it may contain only a small percentage of Italian oil and have oil from other countries added, while it just says Italian oil on the label.”

In February [2019] the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) warned that poor olive harvests are likely to lead to a big increase in such adulterated oil this year.

And it’s far from the only product affected, with the European Union’s Knowledge Centre for Food Fraud and Quality recently highlighting wine, honey, fish, dairy products, meat and poultry as being frequently faked.

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Food suppliers, like Bellucci are making efforts to guarantee the provenance of their food themselves, using new tools such as blockchain technology.

Best-known for its role in crypto-currencies like Bitcoin, blockchain is a way of keeping records in which each block of data is time-stamped and linked irreversibly to the last, in a way that can’t be subsequently altered.

That makes it possible to keep a secure record of the product’s journey to the supermarket shelf.

Since the company was founded in 2013, Bellucci has aimed to build a reputation around the traceability of its oil. Customers can enter the lot number of a particular bottle into an app to see its precise provenance, right back to the groves where the olives were harvested.

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“We expect an improvement in the exchange of information throughout the supply chain,” says Andrea Biagianti, chief information officer for Certified Origins, Bellucci’s parent company.

“We would also like the ability [to have] more transparency in the supply chain and the genuine trust of consumers.”

IBM’s Food Trust network, formally launched late last year, uses similar techniques.

“In the registration phase, you define the product and its properties – for example, the optical spectrum you see when you look at a bottle of whisky,” explains Andreas Kind, head of blockchain at IBM Research.

The appearance of the whisky is precisely recorded within the blockchain, meaning that the description can’t later be altered. Then transport companies, border control, storage providers or retailers, can see if the look of the liquid no longer matches the description or “optical signature”.

Meanwhile, labels holding tamper-proof “cryptoanchors” are fixed to the bottles. These contain tiny computers holding the product data – encrypted, or encoded, so it can’t be tampered with. The labels break when the bottle is opened.

Linking the packaging and the product in this way offers a kind of proof says Mr Kind, “a bit like when you buy a diamond and get a certificate.”

…

Wollacott’s March 22, 2019 article is fascinating and well worth reading in its entirety.

The honey problem and nuclear detection

Getting back to Canada, specifically, the province of British Columbia (BC), it seems honey producers are concerned that adulterated product is affecting their sales. A January 25, 2019 news article by Glenda Luymes for the Vancouver Sun describes the technology to detect the problem (Note: Links have been removed),

A high-tech honey-testing machine unveiled Thursday [January 24, 2019] in Chilliwack could help B.C. beekeepers root out “adulterated” honey imports that threaten to cheapen their product.

Using a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) machine, Peter Awram’s lab will be able to determine if cheap sweeteners, such as corn syrup or rice syrup, have been added to particular brands of honey to increase producers’ profits.

The machine will also create a “fingerprint” for each honey sample, which will be kept in a database to help distinguish premium B.C. honey from a flood of untested, adulterated honey entering Canada from around the world.

“We’d eventually like to see it lead to a certification scheme, where producers submit their honey for testing and get a label,” said Awram, who runs Worker Bee Honey Company with his parents, Jerry and Pia Awram. “It would give security to the people buying it.”

A study published in October [2018] in Scientific Reports found evidence of global honey fraud, calling honey the world’s “third-most adulterated food.” Researchers tested 100 honey samples from 18 honey-producing countries. They discovered 27 per cent of the samples were “of questionable authenticity,” while 52 of the samples from Asia were adulterated.

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There’s more about honey, adulteration, and detection in this Vancouver Sun video,

You can find the Worker Bee Honey Company here and you can find a 25 minute presentation about hone and the NMR by Peter Awram for the 2018 BC Honey Producers Association annual general meeting here.

Nanotech Security Corp. stock declining but Cantor Fitzgerald Canada analyst Ralph Garcea gives the stock a buy rating

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Linda Rogers has written a Feb. 29, 2016 article about a Vancouver-based company rather perturbingly titled ‘What’s Propelling Nanotech Security Corp to Decline So Much?‘ for Small Cap Wired,

The stock of Nanotech Security Corp (CVE:NTS) is a huge mover today! The stock is down 3.23% or $0.04 after the news [Nanotech Security announced its first quarter fiscal 2016 results in a Feb. 29, 2016 news release], hitting $1.2 per share. … The move comes after 7 months negative chart setup for the $68.48M company. It was reported on Feb, 29 [2016] by Barchart.com. We have $1.06 PT which if reached, will make CVE:NTS worth $8.22 million less.

The Feb. 29, 2016 Nanotech Security news release (summary version) highlights the good news first,

  • Revenue of $1.5 million consistent with the same period last year.  Security Features contributed revenues of $569,000 largely from development contracts and Surveillance delivered $940,000.
  • Gross margin improved to 50% up from 34% in the same period last year.  The improvement reflects the increased mix of higher margin Security Features revenue.
  • Renewed a $1.0 million banknote security feature development contract. The Company successfully renewed the third and final phase of a banknote development contract with a top ten issuing authority to develop a unique Optically Variable Device (“OVD”) security feature for incorporation into future banknotes.  The final phase is expected to generate revenues of approximately $1.0 million.
  • Signed new $3.0 million KolourOptik™ banknote development contract. The Company signed a new three phase development contract to use the KolourOptik™ nanotechnology to develop a unique OVD security features with another G8 country for incorporation into future banknotes.
  • Strategic meetings with large international banknote issuing authority.  The Company continues to work with a large international banknote issuing authority to deliver a significant volume of colour shifting Optical Thin Film (“OTF”), and partner with our KolourOptik™ technology.  Management continues to devote a significant amount of time and resources in advancing these opportunities.
  • Signed a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) with Hueck Folien, a European manufacturer to supply OTF to the banknote market.  The MOU contemplates an operational agreement to collaborate in the volume production of a colour shifting OTF security feature.  The OTF product is anticipated to initially be used in banknotes as threads and then expand into other markets in the future.

Doug Blakeway, Nanotech’s Chairman and CEO commented, “These two development contracts are material achievements.  Issuing authorities are paying us – something not common in the industry – to design unique banknote security features with our OTF and KolourOptik™ technologies.”  He further added, “Nanotech’s team has scaled the Hueck Folien production facility to where we believe together we can provide the initial volumes demanded by a top-ten issuing authority.  Our relationship with Hueck Folien continues to funnel security feature opportunities to Nanotech.”

The company’s sadder news can be found in their seven-page Feb. 29, 2016 news release (PDF). Their net earnings for the final quarter of 2015 and 2014 were both losses but in 2014 their loss was (931,271) and in 2015 it was (1,746,335). Still, the company’s gross profit from revenue for the same time periods was 50% in 2015 as opposed to 34% in 2014 despite slightly less revenue in 2015.

Assuming I’ve read this information correctly, Nanotech Security does seem to be in a fragile situation but that can change. After all, IBM was in serious trouble for a number of years during the 1990s when there was even talk the company might go bankrupt. As far as I’m aware, IBM is no longer in imminent danger of disappearing from the scene. *ETA March 9, 2016: It seems I used the wrong example if Robert X. Cringley’s March 9, 2016 article ‘What’s happening at IBM? (It’s dying)‘ for Beta News is to be believed.)* Getting back to my point, companies do go through cycles and it can be difficult to determine exactly what’s happening at some of the earlier stages.

Certainly, Cantor Fitzgerald Canada analyst Ralph Garcea has an optimistic view of Nanotech Security’s prospects according to a March 1, 2016 article by Nick Waddell for cantech letter,

Nanotech Security (TSXV:NTS) offers a better and more secure solution in multiple market segments that together are worth billions of dollars per year, says Cantor Fitzgerald Canada analyst Ralph Garcea.

This morning [March 1, 2016], Garcea initiated coverage of Nanotech with a “Buy” rating and a one-year price target of $2.50, implying a return of 110 per cent at the time of publication.

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Garcea notes that Nanotech has already created solutions for the consumer electronics, brand identification and currency segments. He points out that one of the company’s biggest differentiators is that its solution can be embedded onto almost any material. This is important, he says, because it means that security can be embedded into places it previously could not go, such as directly onto a pharmaceutical pill.

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Shares of Nanotech Security closed today [March 1, 2016] up 2.5 per cent to $1.22.

I have written about Nanotech Security frequently and believe the most recent is a Dec. 29, 2015 posting. For those unfamiliar with the company’s technology, it’s based on the structures found on the blue morpho butterfly. The holes in the butterfly’s wings lend it certain optical properties which the company mimics for its anti-counterfeiting technology.

One final comment, I am not endorsing the company or any of the analysis of the company’s financial situation and prospects.

Vancouver (Canada) -based NanoTech Security and its tireless self-promotion

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First featured here in a January 17, 2011 posting about proposed anti-counterfeiting measures based on the structures present on the Blue Morpho butterfly’s wings, NanoTech Security is the subject of a profile in the Vancouver (Canada) Sun’s Dec. 28, 2015 Technology article by Randy Shore.

They’ve managed to get themselves into the newspaper without having any kind of real news, research or business, to share. As is so often the case, timing is everything. This is a low news period (between Christmas and New Year) and the folks at NanoTech Security got lucky with a reporter who doesn’t know much about the company or the technology. When you add in low public awareness about the company and its products (you couldn’t do this with a company specializing in a well established technology, e.g., smartphones), there’s an opportunity.

Getting back to Shore’s Dec. 28, 2015 Technology article in the Vancouver Sun,

Landrock [Clint Landrock], the chief technology officer at Burnaby-based [Burnaby is a municipality in what’s known as Metro Vancouver] Nanotech Security Corp., has spun off his SFU [Simon Fraser University] research to found the firm, which is developing nano-optics for the global battle against counterfeiters.

Colour-shifting holographic images, used as counterfeit protection on many banknotes, use technology that has been around for more than 35 years and they are increasingly easy to reproduce. Talented hobbyists can duplicate simple holographic features and organized criminals with deeper pockets can reproduce more sophisticated features with the right equipment.

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Nanotech Security hopes to take a quantum leap ahead of forgers.

The detail and colour reproduction possible in Nanotech’s KolourOptick are dramatically better than the holographic images used on banknotes.

“We can improve a lot on those, by making the image a lot brighter, have a lot more detail and make it easy to view,” said Landrock. “When you try to fake that, it’s much more difficult to do and when you see a fake it looks fake.”

“Right now, the fake holograms often look better than the real thing,” he said.

Tiny structuresWhat [sic] Landrock found on the wings of the Blue Morpho was a lattice of tiny treelike structures that interact with light, selecting certain wavelengths to create a bright blue hue without pigments.

This ‘origins’ story includes a business mastermind, Doug Blakeway, and the researcher (Bozena Kaminska) under whose supervision Landrock did his work. Blakeway provides a somewhat puzzling quote for Shore’s story,

“I love nanotechnology, but I really have not seen a commercialization of it that can make you money in the near term, [emphasis mine]” said Blakeway. “When this was initially presented to me by Bozena and Clint, I immediately saw their vision and they were only after one application — creating anti-counterfeiting features for banknotes.”

The three formed a private company and licensed the patents from SFU, which receives a three per cent royalty on sales of the technology created under its roof. …

I am perplexed by Blakeway’s ” … I really have not seen a commercialization of it that can make you money in the near term” comment. There are many nanotechnology-enabled products on the market ranging from coatings for superhydrophobic waterproofing products to carbon fibre-enhanced golf clubs to nanoscale chips for computers and components for phones to athletic materials impregnated with silver nanoparticles for their antibacterial properties (clothes you don’t have to wash as often) to cosmetics and beauty products, e.g., nano sunscreens, and there are more.

NanoTech Security’s recently released some information about their financial status. They must feel encouraged by their gains and other business developments (from a Dec. 17, 2015 NanoTech Security news release),

Nanotech Security Corp. (TSXV: NTS) (OTCQX: NTSFF), (“Nanotech” or the “Company”) today released its financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended September 30, 2015.

Strategic Highlights from 2015

Revenue increased to $5.2 million a 131% increase over 2014. Security Features contributed revenues of $3.1 million.
Gross margin improved to 43% up from 34% in the same period last year. The improvement reflects the increased mix of higher margin Security Features revenue.
Signed two banknote security feature development contracts. The contracts are with top ten issuing authorities to develop unique optically-variable security features for incorporation into future banknotes.
Strategic meetings with large international banknote issuing authority. The Company has been approached by a large international banknote issuing authority to deliver a large volume of Optical Thin Film (“OTF”), and partner with our KolourOptik™ technology. Management continues to devote a significant amount of time and resources in advancing these opportunities.
Private Placement. The Company completed a non-brokered private placement financing of $2.6 million in equity units at $1.00 each.
Signed an amending agreement related to the 2014 Fortress Optical purchase agreement. The amendment provides that 1.5 million of the 3.0 million shares held in escrow, pending certain sales milestones were released from escrow and the remaining 1.5 million shares were returned to the treasury. The overall effect of the amendment resulted in a gain of $1.5 million and cancellation of 1.5 million shares.
Demonstrated KolourOptik™ security feature on metal coins. The Company successfully applied nanotechnology images to metal coins in a production environment at an issuing mint.
Granted five new patents expanding the growing IP portfolio. Three patents relate to the Company’s next generation nanotechnology authentication features, and two provide increased protection for OTF.

I’m curious as to how much of their revenue is derived from sales as opposed to research funding and just how much money does a 43% increase in gross margins represent? (Or, perhaps I just need to get better at reading news about *companies* and their finances.) In any event, signing two contracts and gaining interest in applying the technology to metal coins must have been exciting.

This story goes to show that if you understand news cycles, have a little luck and/or know someone, and have a relatively unknown technology or product, it’s possible to get media coverage.

*’company’s’ corrected to ‘companies’.

Business in Vancouver discovers nanotechnology

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There’ve been two articles in the Vancouver (Canada) newspaper, Business in Vancouver by Tyler Orton about a Simon Fraser University spin-off (start up) company, Nanotech Security. I first mentioned the not-yet-named company in a January 17, 2011 posting about proposed anti-counterfeiting measures based on the structures present on the Blue Morpho butterfly’s wings.

Orton’s Feb. 24, 2015 piece for Business in Vancouver provides an update on the company and on some of the business issues associated with a new technology and the strategy being used to introduce it,

Colour-shifting optical film has been the industry standard for banknote security since the 1990s. Depending on the angle of view, colours change on security features printed on bills in a way that the average person can recognize.

Because the nanotechnology has yet to be fully commercialized, the optical film side of the business is growing the most.

…

… increased demand for the optical film products prompted Nanotech to add a second shift at its Quebec cellulose facility, which was acquired – along with the legacy business – from North Vancouver’s Fortress Paper (TSX:FTP) in August.

Fortress Paper CEO Chad Wasilenkoff said when discussions began over the sale of Fortress Optical Features (FOF) he was immediately drawn to Nanotech’s butterfly technology.

“Getting a brand-new security feature that has not been used anywhere before … [banks] are just not willing to take a chance on new things in general when it comes to banknotes,” he told Business in Vancouver.

“It will take a little while to come to fruition, but we think putting these two entities [Nanotech and FOF] together will definitely fast-track that.”

Counterfeiting hit its most recent peak in 2004, when 470 fake notes per million were detected across the country, according to a 2011 Bank of Canada (BoC) study.

…

Wasilenkoff, whose company operates another banknote security firm in Switzerland, said he was happy with the return on investment after Fortress bought the BoC assets for  $750,000 and sold them to Nanotech three years later for $17.5 million.

“We were able to find a solution that was really synergistic for both companies,” he said, adding that Fortress will receive preferential treatment on new security features Nanotech develops.

…

LeRoux [Nanotech chief development officer Igi LeRoux] added that acquiring the legacy business was necessary if the nanotechnology was to be taken seriously in an industry that greets upstart companies with skepticism.

“[Now] We have an established network, we have an established market base, we have an existing product and – most importantly – we have an existing reputation in the industry.”

Orton’s Aug. 28, 2015 piece for Business in Vancouver builds on his Feb. work (Note: Links have been removed),

Banknotes implanted with nanotechnology, bills printed with pinhead-sized images at maximum resolution or even coins that can store of data.

… it’s not the kind of out-there concepts that only exists in the mind of the CEO of Nanotech Security [Doug Blakeway].

The Burnaby-based banknote security firm has been working non-stop to get these anti-counterfeiting measures onto the streets as quickly as possible and is preparing to ramp up production and sales of its technology after securing $2.6 million in its latest round of fundraising that closed Wednesday (August 26 [2015]).

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Blakeway said the plan is to converge the nanotechnology and the optical film technology soon. It’s a measure he said is necessary to introduce the nanotechnology to issuing authorities that may be skeptical about the new product.

It probably won’t be until November before Nanotech discloses which countries are using its technology. Issuing authorities, Blakeway said, are reluctant to reveal exactly what measures they’re taking to fight counterfeiting.

“You can talk about the top 10 issuing authorities or the G8 issuing authorities,” he said.

…

But Nanotech isn’t stopping only at imprinting bills with the microscopic holes.

Mints began asking last year if it could transfer its technology onto coins in a stamping operation without any extra cost, save for the dye they use.

Moving forward, the coins will be able to store data through an image that’s carried through light waves.

I trust someone will notify the US government about this proposed nanotechnology-enabled coinage. There have been concerns about Canadian coinage in the past as noted in a May 7, 2007 article in thestar.com by Ted Bridis (Associated Press),

An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind the U.S. Defence Department’s false espionage warning earlier this year, the Associated Press has learned.

The odd-looking – but harmless – “poppy coin” was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors travelling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as “anomalous” and “filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology,” according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP.

The silver-coloured 25-cent piece features the red image of a poppy – Canada’s flower of remembrance – inlaid over a maple leaf. The unorthodox quarter is identical to the coins pictured and described as suspicious in the contractors’ accounts.

The supposed nano-technology actually was a conventional protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy’s red color from rubbing off. The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 commemorating Canada’s 117,000 war dead.

“It did not appear to be electronic (analog) in nature or have a power source,” wrote one U.S. contractor, who discovered the coin in the cup holder of a rental car. “Under high power microscope, it appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear, but different material, with a wire like mesh suspended on top.”

The confidential accounts led to a sensational warning from the Defence Security Service, an agency of the Defence Department, that mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors travelled through Canada.

It seems those army contractors were prescient about nanotechnology-enabled coins. As for the potential to use these coins for spying, I leave that speculation to those who know more about the technology.

University of Waterloo (Canada) and an anti-counterfeiting startup

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Students from the University of Waterloo are working to commercialize an ink they say can be used in anti-counterfeiting measures in products ranging from money to medications to pesticides and more. From an Aug. 7, 2015 article by Matthew Braga for Motherboard.com (Note: A link has been removed),

The ink is pretty much invisible to the naked eye, which isn’t new, but blast it with a pulse from a smartphone camera’s flash, run the resulting image through some fancy processing algorithms, and the result is a unique numerical sequence that can verify the authenticity of whatever product it’s been applied to.

Their company is named Arylla (formerly Black Box Technologies), and was founded by Ben Rasera, Graham Thomas, and Perry Everett—all final year students in Waterloo’s nanotechnology engineering program. …

“In a nutshell, we are making inks that have unique optical signatures that can be verified using a smartphone,” Everett said in a phone interview. The ink can be printed on pretty much anything, from a computer chip to something organic, like an apple (although who counterfeits an apple?). They’re focusing on electronics for now.

Braga notes in his article that there are few details about the ‘nano ink’ mentioned,

“It’s a fairly new material as far as nanotechnology goes,” Everett said, but declined to name what, specifically, they were working with—only that it was a modified version of a material that is relatively new. “The most interesting aspect of the material is you can basically tune the properties in order to act like a barcode. So when I say optical signature what I’m talking about is a numerical sequence, and that sequence is embedded in the nanomaterial,” he explained.

The barcode is based on both the physical pattern of the application of the ink itself, and the colours that are reflected when the flash hits the nanomaterial.

There’s more information in the article about the company and some rather interesting speculation on Braga’s part as to how counterfeiters might respond to this new measure should it prove successful.

An Aug. 10, 2015 University of Waterloo news release provides information about the students’ work and their startup, Arylla (Note: Links have been removed),

Last year, more than 60,000 counterfeit Canadian bank notes passed into circulation. But a new ink from the Velocity Science startup Arylla could change that.

…

The nano inks can be applied to just about anything from money to tiny microprocessors to handbags. Since the inks are also biocompatible and non-toxic they can be applied to pills and even liquids, such as pesticides.

Last month, the company (formerly known as Black Box Technologies) won $25,000 at the Spring Velocity Fund Final competition.

Good luck to the students! You can find Arylla here.

Tiny gold Archimedes’ spirals and identity theft prevention

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There’s more than one way to prevent identity theft and counterfeit currency (there’s more about an approach pioneered in Canada at the end of this post). Scientists at Vanderbilt University and at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a new technology to achieve those ends, according to a June 3, 2015 news item on Azonano,

Take gold spirals about the size of a dime…and shrink them down about six million times. The result is the world’s smallest continuous spirals: “nano-spirals” with unique optical properties that would be almost impossible to counterfeit if they were added to identity cards, currency and other important objects.

Students and faculty at Vanderbilt University fabricated these tiny Archimedes’ spirals and then used ultrafast lasers at Vanderbilt and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, to characterize their optical properties. The results are reported in a paper published online by the Journal of Nanophotonics on May 21 [2015].

A June 2, 2015 Vanderbilt University news release, which originated the news item, describes how the research was approached,

“They are certainly smaller than any of the spirals we’ve found reported in the scientific literature,” said Roderick Davidson II, the Vanderbilt doctoral student who figured out how to study their optical behavior. The spirals were designed and made at Vanderbilt by another doctoral student, Jed Ziegler, now at the Naval Research Laboratory.

Most other investigators who have studied the remarkable properties of microscopic spirals have done so by arranging discrete nanoparticles in a spiral pattern: similar to spirals drawn with a series of dots of ink on a piece of paper. By contrast, the new nano-spirals have solid arms and are much smaller: A square array with 100 nano-spirals on a side is less than a hundredth of a millimeter wide.

When these spirals are shrunk to sizes smaller than the wavelength of visible light, they develop unusual optical properties. For example, when they are illuminated with infrared laser light, they emit visible blue light. A number of crystals produce this effect, called frequency doubling or harmonic generation, to various degrees. The strongest frequency doubler previously known is the synthetic crystal beta barium borate, but the nano-spirals produce four times more blue light per unit volume.

When infrared laser light strikes the tiny spirals, it is absorbed by electrons in the gold arms. The arms are so thin that the electrons are forced to move along the spiral. Electrons that are driven toward the center absorb enough energy so that some of them emit blue light at double the frequency of the incoming infrared light.

“This is similar to what happens with a violin string when it is bowed vigorously,” said Stevenson Professor of Physics Richard Haglund, who directed the research. “If you bow a violin string very lightly it produces a single tone. But, if you bow it vigorously, it also begins producing higher harmonics, or overtones. The electrons at the center of the spirals are driven pretty vigorously by the laser’s electric field. The blue light is exactly an octave higher than the infrared – the second harmonic.”

The nano-spirals also have a distinctive response to polarized laser light. Linearly polarized light, like that produced by a Polaroid filter, vibrates in a single plane. When struck by such a light beam, the amount of blue light the nano-spirals emit varies as the angle of the plane of polarization is rotated through 360 degrees.

The effect is even more dramatic when circularly polarized laser light is used. In circularly polarized light, the polarization plane rotates either clockwise or counterclockwise. When left-handed nano-spirals are illuminated with clockwise polarized light, the amount of blue light produced is maximized because the polarization pushes the electrons toward the center of the spiral. Counterclockwise polarized light, on the other hand, produces a minimal amount of blue light because the polarization tends to push the electrons outward so that the waves from all around the nano-spiral interfere destructively.

The news release goes on to explain how the properties of these gold nanospirals can be applied to identity theft protection and anti-counterfeiting measures,

The combination of the unique characteristics of their frequency doubling and response to polarized light provide the nano-spirals with a unique, customizable signature that would be extremely difficult to counterfeit, the researchers said.

So far, Davidson has experimented with small arrays of gold nano-spirals on a glass substrate made using scanning electron-beam lithography. Silver and platinum nano-spirals could be made in the same way. Because of the tiny quantities of metal actually used, they can be made inexpensively out of precious metals, which resist chemical degradation. They can also be made on plastic, paper and a number of other substrates.

“If nano-spirals were embedded in a credit card or identification card, they could be detected by a device comparable to a barcode reader,” said Haglund.

The frequency doubling effect is strong enough so that arrays that are too small to see with the naked eye can be detected easily. That means they could be placed in a secret location on a card, which would provide an additional barrier to counterfeiters.

The researchers also argue that coded nano-spiral arrays could be encapsulated and placed in explosives, chemicals and drugs – any substance that someone wants to track closely – and then detected using an optical readout device.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Eflcient forward second-harmonic generation from planar archimedean nanospirals by Roderick B. Davidson II,  Jed I. Ziegler,Guillermo Vargas, Sergey M. Avanesyan, Yu Gong, Wayne Hess, & Richard F. Haglund Jr. Nanophotonics. Volume 4, Issue 1, ISSN (Online) 2192-8614, DOI: 10.1515/nanoph-2015-0002, May 2015

This paper is open access.

The researchers have provided an image,

Scanning electron microscope image of an individual nano-spiral. (Haglund Lab / Vanderbilt)

Scanning electron microscope image of an individual nano-spiral. (Haglund Lab / Vanderbilt)

This works brings to mind Nanotech Security, a Vancouver (Canada) -based company that provides anti-counterfeiting measures derived from observations made of the Blue Morpho butterfly and the nanostructures on its wings. My latest post about the technology, a June 1, 2015 piece, describes the company’s latest patents and my earliest post, a Jan. 17, 2011 piece, features the first laboratory announcement about the butterfly, the work, and hopes for the technology.

Canadian company, Nanotech Security Corp. hopes to purchase Fortress Optical Features

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Nanotech Security Corp. started life as a spin-off company from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. A  Jan. 17, 2011 posting and a followup Sept. 29, 2011 posting will probably give you more information about the technology and the company’s beginnings than you every thought you’d want.

For those interested in the company’s current expectations, an Aug. 27, 2014 news item on Nanotechnology Now describes Nanotech Security Corp.’s plan to purchase another business (also Canadian with the parent company [which is not being purchased] headquartered in North Vancouver},

Nanotech Security Corp. (TSXV:NTS) (OTCQX:NTSFF) (“Nanotech” or “the Company”) today announces an agreement with Fortress Global Securities Sarl, a subsidiary of TSX listed Fortress Paper Ltd. (“Fortress Paper”), to purchase 100% of Fortress Optical Features Ltd. (“Fortress Optical Features”), a producer of optical thin film (“OTF”) used as security threads in banknotes in several countries. The definitive share and loan purchase agreement (the “Purchase Agreement”) provides for Nanotech to acquire 100% of the issued and outstanding securities of Fortress Optical Features for consideration of up to $17.5 million, of which 3 million Nanotech shares (up to $4.5 million) is contingent on the future operating performance of Fortress Optical Features. Nanotech has also entered into an agreement with Canaccord Genuity Corp. (“Canaccord Genuity”) to act as sole lead manager and book-runner, and including Craig-Hallum Capital Group, in respect of a private placement of subscription receipts of the Company convertible into Nanotech common shares (“Shares”) and Share purchase warrants (“Warrants”) in a targeted range of $9.0 million to $16.0 million as more fully described below. To date, subscription agreements in excess of $8.0 million have been received which is an amount sufficient to pay the cash portion of the acquisition under the Purchase Agreement. All monetary amounts are in Canadian dollars.

An Aug. 26, 2014 Nanotech Security Corp. news release, which originated the news item, provides additional details,

The acquisition of Fortress Optical Features will serve as a platform to accelerate commercialization of Nanotech’s KolourOptik technology by integrating it into Fortress Optical Features’ product line as an addition of KolourOptik images to the OTF threads.

Nanotech will acquire Fortress Optical Features’ state-of-the-art building and vacuum metal deposition equipment, located near Ottawa.

The transaction combines complementary businesses that can leverage established banknote customer relationships to accelerate market entry and leapfrog competitive technologies. To date, Fortress Optical Features’ technology has been utilized by 11 international currencies.

Fortress Optical Features’ CEO Igi LeRoux, and COO, Ron Ridley, will be integrated into the Company’s senior management.

Fortress has the right to appoint one director to the Nanotech board and Nanotech will appoint a director to a Fortress affiliate concerned with security paper production.
Cash portion of the purchase price to be funded by a subscription receipts offering at $1.50, each convertible into a Share and one-half Warrant as fully described below.
Concurrent financing and acquisition closings are scheduled for September 10, 2014.

“We believe this will be a transformational transaction for Nanotech”, stated Doug Blakeway, President and CEO of Nanotech. “By layering our KolourOptik nanotechnology onto Fortress Optical Features’ security threads which are currently used in numerous currencies, we will create a next-generation product for the banknote industry”.

Mr. Blakeway added, “Additionally, the transaction will expand Nanotech’s current IP portfolio for optical security features to include Fortress Optical Features’ 14 current patent applications which should enhance our ability to compete in other commercial spaces such as passports as well as product branding and authentication”.

Fortress Optical Features’ core business is optical thin film material used in security threads incorporated in banknotes in several countries. Originally developed by the Bank of Canada, and subsequently sold to Fortress Optical Features in 2011, this technology was deployed on Canadian banknotes from 1989 until 2011 as well as ten other international currencies. In the twelve month period ending December 31, 2013 Fortress Optical Features generated approximately $2.3 million in revenue and its existing plant could service production of about eight times the level of production which generated this revenue.

Fortress Optical Features recently invested $4.2 million to renovate its existing production facility and added $1.0 million in new equipment over the past few years. As part of the transaction, Nanotech will acquire Fortress Optical Features’ state-of-the-art production facility and high technology OTF production equipment. Fortress Optical Features is currently pursuing business in some of the world’s largest countries and sees potential new opportunities internationally. According to Secura Monde International, the top five banknote producing economies include China, India, the European Union, the United States and Indonesia.

TRANSACTION DETAILS AND CLOSING CONDITIONS

Under the terms of the Purchase Agreement, Nanotech will pay up to $17.5 million to be satisfied by a combination of $7 million cash, 5 million common shares of Nanotech and a secured vendor take-back note of $3 million with an interest rate of 4% per annum. Of this consideration 2 million shares will have a four month hold period from closing and 3 million shares will be escrowed and shall be released based on certain specific performance milestones based on sales of product to new customers over up to 5 years. Shares may be released early in the event of a sale of the business or change of control of Nanotech. Contingent shares not released after 5 years will be cancelled. Details of the share release formula will be found in the Purchase Agreement to be filed at www.sedar.com.

All Shares have a deemed value of $1.50 and the acquisition and financing transactions do not constitute a change of business nor a change of control for Nanotech but will be treated under TSX Venture Exchange policies as a fundamental acquisition.

Completion of the transaction will be subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of all regulatory approvals of the TSXV as well as the listing of the common shares issuable in connection with the transaction, including those underlying the subscription receipts. If Nanotech elects to terminate the acquisition in reliance on an allowable condition, a $600,000 break fee payable in Shares is due to Fortress Paper. Nanotech and Fortress Optical Features anticipate the transaction and financing will close on or about September 10, 2014.

RELATED AGREEMENT DETAILS

As part of Nanotech’s acquisition of Fortress Optical Features, the parties and/or their affiliates have entered into certain ancillary agreements. These include a supply agreement under which Fortress Optical Features will continue to supply OTF security threads to Fortress Paper’s Swiss-based Landqart specialty paper division. Landqart will enjoy favoured customer status subject to certain minimum purchase obligations. Under a lease and related shared services agreement, a Fortress Paper affiliate will lease approximately 2/3 of the 100,000 sq ft building being acquired as part of Fortress Optical Features assets and the parties will share the costs of steam production, electrical power, security, and administration services. The $3 million note is fully secured against Fortress Optical Features shares and assets.

SUBSCRIPTION RECEIPT OFFERING

Nanotech has entered into an agreement with Canaccord Genuity, acting as sole lead manager and sole bookrunner, and including Craig-Hallum Capital Group, to sell on a best-efforts marketed private placement basis, up to approximately 10,667,000 subscription receipts of the Company (the “Subscription Receipts”) at a price of $1.50 per Subscription Receipt (the “Subscription Price”), for gross proceeds to Nanotech of up to $16.0 million.

The Subscription Receipts will automatically convert, without additional payment, into one common share and one-half of a common share purchase warrant of the Company for each Subscription Receipt upon completion of the transaction. Subject to certain conditions, each whole purchase warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one common share of Nanotech at a price of $1.90 for a period of one year from issuance. The warrants are subject to accelerated expiry in the event that the common shares of Nanotech trade on the TSX Venture Exchange at $2.25 or more for a ten consecutive day period after the four month resale restricted period applicable to the Shares in Canada expires. Completion of the Subscription Receipt offering is subject to certain conditions, including receipt of the approval of the TSXV and all other necessary regulatory approvals.

Net proceeds from the Subscription Receipt offering will be used by the Company to partially fund the purchase price payable for Fortress Optical Features and for general corporate purposes.

The Subscription Price represents a discount of approximately 6% to the closing price of $1.60 per common share of Nanotech on the TSXV on August 25, 2014 and a discount of approximately 7% over the 30-trading day volume-weighted average price of $ 1.61 per common share of Nanotech on the TSXV, up to and including August 25, 2014.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

####

About Nanotech Security Corp.

Nanotech has been a leading innovator in the design and commercialization of advanced security products using nano-optical devices. Nanotech’s KolourOptik™ and Plasmogram™ optically variable devices (“OVD”s) are nanotechnology based product platforms originally inspired by the unique optical properties of the iridescent wings of the Blue Morpho butterfly. Nanotech OVD images produce intense, high definition images that are ideal for brand authentication and for distinguishing currency, documents, personal identification, consumer electronics, etc. from fakes. Nanotech’s KolourOptik OVD platform creates unique, easy to authenticate images through interaction of light with nano-sized (billionth of a meter) arrays of surface indentation structures imbedded through algorithms and electron beams into various substrates. These nanostructures create vivid colour images, activated by a simple tilt or rotation, and achieve higher resolutions than the best LED-displays currently available, as well as having optical properties not achievable with holograms.

Additional information about Nanotech and its technologies can be found on its website www.nanosecurity.ca or the Canadian disclosure filings website www.sedar.com or the OTCMarkets disclosure filings website www.otcmarkets.com

ABOUT FORTRESS OPTICAL FEATURES

Fortress Optical Features produces optically variable thin film security material for the security threads contained in certain previous Canadian banknotes and various other international currency denominations. The film is a unique combination of layered or ‘stacked’ thin film materials to produce a predictable colour replay. Additional features of the film include differing optical features or colors which appear when the banknote is tilted. The material was developed by the Bank of Canada in coordination with the National Research Council of Canada in the early 1980s and was first used as a patch on Bank of Canada $20, $50, $100 and $1,000 denominations of Birds of Canada series issued from 1988-1993 and also used on all Canadian Journey denominations issued from 2004 –2011. Fortress Optical Features’ high security products are marketed to security paper manufacturers throughout the world.

Additional information about Fortress Optical Features and its technologies can be found on its website www.fortresspaper.com/company/optical-security-features

…

This News Release contains forward-looking statements about the proposed acquisition by Nanotech of all of the issued and outstanding securities of Fortress Optical Features and the related offering of Subscription Receipts. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as “expects”, “anticipates”, “believes”, “intends”, “estimates”, “predicts”, “potential”, “targeted” “plans”, “possible” and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions or results “will”, “may”, “could” or “should” occur or be achieved.

These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements about our market opportunities, strategies, competition, and the Company’s views that its nano-optical technology will continue to show promise for mass production and commercial application. The principal risks related to these forward-looking statements are that the Company’s intellectual property claims will not prove sufficiently broad or enforceable to provide the necessary commercial protection and to attract the necessary capital and/or that the Company’s products will not be able to displace entrenched hologram, metalized strip tagging, and other conventional anti-counterfeiting technologies sufficiently to allow for profitability.

There can be no assurance that the transaction will occur or that the anticipated strategic benefits and operational synergies will be realized. The transaction is subject to the successful closing of the Subscription Receipt offering and to various regulatory approvals, including approvals by the TSXV, and the fulfilment of certain conditions, and there can be no assurance that any such approvals will be obtained and/or any such conditions will be met. The transaction and the Subscription Receipt offering could be modified, restructured or terminated.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect Nanotech’s expectations only as of the date of this News Release. Nanotech disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

This News Release is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities in the United States or in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities described in this News Release have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of such laws.

This News Release is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities in the United States or in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities described in this News Release have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of such laws.

So there you have it. No one is responsible for anything but they hope for the best.

Your smartphone can be an anti-counterfeiting device thanks to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has announced an anti-counterfeiting technology, from an April 29, 2014 article by Mark Wilson for Fast Company (Note: Links have been removed),

Most of us [in the United States] know the Secret Service as the black-suited organization employed to protect the President. But in reality, the service was created toward the end of the Civil War, before Lincoln was assassinated, to crack down on counterfeit currency. Because up to a third of all money at the time was counterfeit.

Fast-forward 150 years:  … the Secret Service reports that they expect counterfeiting to increase. And counterfeiting is no longer a problem for money alone. [emphasis mine] Prescription drugs are also counterfeited–with potentially deadly side effects.

As I noted in an April 28, 2014 posting (How do you know that’s extra virgin olive oil?) about a Swiss anti-counterfeiting effort involving nanoscale labels/tags, foodstuffs and petrol can also be counterfeited.

An April 13, 2014 MIT news release describes the project further,

Led by MIT chemical engineering professor Patrick Doyle and Lincoln Laboratory technical staff member Albert Swiston, the researchers have invented a new type of tiny, smartphone-readable particle that they believe could be deployed to help authenticate currency, electronic parts, and luxury goods, among other products. The particles, which are invisible to the naked eye, contain colored stripes of nanocrystals that glow brightly when lit up with near-infrared light.

These particles can easily be manufactured and integrated into a variety of materials, and can withstand extreme temperatures, sun exposure, and heavy wear, says Doyle, the senior author of a paper describing the particles in the April 13 issue of Nature Materials. They could also be equipped with sensors that can “record” their environments — noting, for example, if a refrigerated vaccine has ever been exposed to temperatures too high or low.

…

The new particles are about 200 microns long and include several stripes of different colored nanocrystals, known as “rare earth upconverting nanocrystals.” [emphasis mine] These crystals are doped with elements such as ytterbium, gadolinium, erbium, and thulium, which emit visible colors when exposed to near-infrared light. By altering the ratios of these elements, the researchers can tune the crystals to emit any color in the visible spectrum.

The researchers have produced a video where they describe the counterfeiting problem and their solution in nontechnical terms,

For anyone who prefers to read their science, there’s this more technically detailed description (than the one in the video), from the MIT news release ,

To manufacture the particles, the researchers used stop-flow lithography, a technique developed previously by Doyle. This approach allows shapes to be imprinted onto parallel flowing streams of liquid monomers — chemical building blocks that can form longer chains called polymers. Wherever pulses of ultraviolet light strike the streams, a reaction is set off that forms a solid polymeric particle.

In this case, each polymer stream contains nanocrystals that emit different colors, allowing the researchers to form striped particles. So far, the researchers have created nanocrystals in nine different colors, but it should be possible to create many more, Doyle says.

…

Using this procedure, the researchers can generate vast quantities of unique tags. With particles that contain six stripes, there are 1 million different possible color combinations; this capacity can be exponentially enhanced by tagging products with more than one particle. For example, if the researchers created a set of 1,000 unique particles and then tagged products with any 10 of those particles, there would be 1030 possible combinations — far more than enough to tag every grain of sand on Earth.

“It’s really a massive encoding capacity,” says Bisso, who started this project while on the technical staff at Lincoln Lab. “You can apply different combinations of 10 particles to products from now until long past our time and you’ll never get the same combination.”

“The use of these upconverting nanocrystals is quite clever and highly enabling,” says Jennifer Lewis, a professor of biologically inspired engineering at Harvard University who was not involved in the research. “There are several striking features of this work, namely the exponentially scaling encoding capacities and the ultralow decoding false-alarm rate.”

Versatile particles

The microparticles could be dispersed within electronic parts or drug packaging during the manufacturing process, incorporated directly into 3-D-printed objects, or printed onto currency, the researchers say. They could also be incorporated into ink that artists could use to authenticate their artwork.

The researchers demonstrated the versatility of their approach by using two polymers with radically different material properties — one hydrophobic and one hydrophilic —to make their particles. The color readouts were the same with each, suggesting that the process could easily be adapted to many types of products that companies might want to tag with these particles, Bisso says.

“The ability to tailor the tag’s material properties without impacting the coding strategy is really powerful,” he says. “What separates our system from other anti-counterfeiting technologies is this ability to rapidly and inexpensively tailor material properties to meet the needs of very different and challenging requirements, without impacting smartphone readout or requiring a complete redesign of the system.”

Another advantage to these particles is that they can be read without an expensive decoder like those required by most other anti-counterfeiting technologies. [emphasis mine] Using a smartphone camera equipped with a lens offering twentyfold magnification, anyone could image the particles after shining near-infrared light on them with a laser pointer. The researchers are also working on a smartphone app that would further process the images and reveal the exact composition of the particles.

Before giving a link to and a citation for the paper, I’m going to make an observations.  ‘Rare earths’ the source from which these nanocrystals are derived is concerning since China, the main supplier of rare earths, is limiting the supply made available outside the country and seems intent on continuing to do so. While I appreciate the amount of rare earth needed in the laboratory is minor, should this technology be commercialized and adopted there may be a problem given that ‘rare earths’ are used extensively in smartphones, computers, etc. and that China is limiting the supply.

That said, here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Universal process-inert encoding architecture for polymer microparticles by Jiseok Lee, Paul W. Bisso, Rathi L. Srinivas, Jae Jung Kim, Albert J. Swiston, & Patrick S. Doyle. Nature Materials 13, 524–529 (2014) doi:10.1038/nmat3938 Published online 13 April 2014

This article  is behind a paywall.

How do you know that’s extra virgin olive oil?

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Who guarantees that expensive olive oil isn’t counterfeit or adulterated? An invisible label, developed by ETH researchers, could perform this task. The tag consists of tiny magnetic DNA particles encapsulated in a silica casing and mixed with the oil.

So starts Barbara Vonarburg’s April 24, 2014 ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology or Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich) news release (also on EurekAlert). She goes on to describe the scope of the situation regarding counterfeit foods,

The worldwide need for anti-counterfeiting labels for food is substantial. In a joint operation in December 2013 and January 2014, Interpol and Europol confiscated more than 1,200 tonnes of counterfeit or substandard food and almost 430,000 litres of counterfeit beverages. The illegal trade is run by organised criminal groups that generate millions in profits, say the authorities. The confiscated goods also included more than 131,000 litres of oil and vinegar.

Jon Henley’s Jan. 4, 2012 article for the UK’s Guardian provides more insight into the specifics of counterfeit olive oil (Note: A link has been removed),

Last month [December 2011], the Olive Oil Times reported that two Spanish businessmen had been sentenced to two years in prison in Cordoba for selling hundreds of thousands of litres of supposedly extra virgin olive oil that was, in fact, a mixture of 70-80% sunflower oil and 20-30% olive.

…

… So with a litre of supermarket extra virgin costing up to £4, and connoisseurs willing to pay 10 times that sum for a far smaller bottle of seasonal, first cold stone pressed, single estate, artisan-milled oil from Italy or Greece, can we be sure of getting what we’re paying for?

The answer, according to Tom Mueller in a book out this month [January 2012], is very often not. In Extra Virginity: the Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, Mueller, an American who lives in Italy, lays bare the workings of an industry prey, he argues, to hi-tech, industrial-scale fraud. The problem, he says, is that good olive oil is difficult, time-consuming and expensive to make, but easy, quick and cheap to doctor.

Most commonly, it seems, extra virgin oil is mixed with a lower grade olive oil, often not from the same country. Sometimes, another vegetable oil such as colza or canola is used. The resulting blend is then chemically coloured, flavoured and deodorised, and sold as extra-virgin to a producer. Almost any brand can, in theory, be susceptible: major names such as Bertolli (then owned by Unilever [see Henley’s article for details about the 2008 Italian olive oil scandal]) have found themselves in court having to argue, successfully in this instance, that they had themselves been defrauded by their supplier.

Meanwhile, the chemical tests that should by law be performed by exporters of extra virgin oil before it can be labelled and sold as such can often fail to detect adulterated oil, particularly when it has been mixed with products such as deodorised, lower-grade olive oil in a sophisticated modern refinery.

Given the benefits claimed for olive oil, I imagine lower grade olive oil which is more highly processed or, worse yet, a completely different kind of oil would diminish or, possibly, eliminate any potential health benefit.

Getting back to the ETH Zurich news release, here’s more about the anti-counterfeiting ‘label’,

Just a few grams of the new substance are enough to tag [label] the entire olive oil production of Italy. If counterfeiting were suspected, the particles added at the place of origin could be extracted from the oil and analysed, enabling a definitive identification of the producer. “The method is equivalent to a label that cannot be removed,” says Robert Grass, lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zurich.

…

A forgery-proof label should not only be invisible but also safe, robust, cheap and easy to detect. To fulfil these criteria ETH researchers used nanotechnology and nature’s information storehouse, DNA. A piece of artificial genetic material is the heart of the mini-label. “With DNA, there are millions of options that can be used as codes,” says Grass. Moreover, the material has an extremely low detection limit, so tiny amounts are sufficient for labelling purposes.

…

However, DNA also has some disadvantages. If the material is used as an information carrier outside a living organism, it cannot repair itself and is susceptible to light, temperature fluctuations and chemicals. Thus, the researchers used a silica coating to protect the DNA, creating a kind of synthetic fossil. The casing represents a physical barrier that protects the DNA against chemical attacks and completely isolates it from the external environment – a situation that mimics that of natural fossils, write the researchers in their paper, which has been published in the journal ACS Nano. To ensure that the particles can be fished out of the oil as quickly and simply as possible, Grass and his team employed another trick: they magnetised the tag by attaching iron oxide nanoparticles.

Experiments in the lab showed that the tiny tags dispersed well in the oil and did not result in any visual changes. They also remained stable when heated and weathered an ageing trial unscathed. The magnetic iron oxide, meanwhile, made it easy to extract the particles from the oil. The DNA was recovered using a fluoride-based solution and analysed by PCR, a standard method that can be carried out today by any medical lab at minimal expense. “Unbelievably small quantities of particles down to a millionth of a gram per litre and a tiny volume of a thousandth of a litre were enough to carry out the authenticity tests for the oil products,” write the researchers. The method also made it possible to detect adulteration: if the concentration of nanoparticles does not match the original value, other oil – presumably substandard – must have been added. The cost of label manufacture should be approximately 0.02 cents per litre.

The researchers have plans for other products that could benefit from this technology and answers to questions about whether or not people would be willing to ingest a label/tag along with their olive oil,

Petrol could also be tagged using this method and the technology could be used in the cosmetics industry as well. In trials the researchers also successfully tagged expensive Bergamot essential oil, which is used as a raw material in perfumes. Nevertheless, Grass sees the greatest potential for the use of invisible labels in the food industry. But will consumers buy expensive ‘extra-virgin’ olive oil when synthetic DNA nanoparticles are floating around in it? “These are things that we already ingest today,” says Grass. Silica particles are present in ketchup and orange juice, among other products, and iron oxide is permitted as a food additive E172.

To promote acceptance, natural genetic material could be used in place of synthetic DNA; for instance, from exotic tomatoes or pineapples, of which there are a great variety – but also from any other fruit or vegetable that is a part of our diet. Of course, the new technology must yield benefits that far outweigh any risks, says Grass. He concedes that as the inventor of the method, he might not be entirely impartial. “But I need to know where food comes from and how pure it is.” In the case of adulterated goods, there is no way of knowing what’s inside. “So I prefer to know which particles have been intentionally added.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the researchers’ paper,

Magnetically Recoverable, Thermostable, Hydrophobic DNA/Silica Encapsulates and Their Application as Invisible Oil Tags by Michela Puddu , Daniela Paunescu , Wendelin J. Stark , and Robert N. Grass. ACS Nano, 2014, 8 (3), pp 2677–2685 DOI: 10.1021/nn4063853 Publication Date (Web): February 25, 2014

Copyright © 2014 American Chemical Society

This article is behind a paywall.

The Swiss aren’t the only ones interested in tagging petrol (gas), they’re already tagging petrol with nanoparticles in Malaysia with as per my Oct. 7, 2011 posting on the topic.

Beautiful color printing for encoding high density data

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Researchers at A*STAR (Agency for Science Technology and Research) based in Singapore have printed images at an extraordinary resolution of 100,000 dots per inch according to an Apr. 10, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily,

To print the image, the team coated a silicon wafer with insulating hydrogen silsesquioxane and then removed part of that layer to leave behind a series of upright posts of about 95 nanometers high. They capped these nanoposts with layers of chromium, silver and gold (1, 15 and 5 nanometers thick, respectively), and also coated the wafer with metal to act as a backreflector.

Each color pixel in the image contained four posts at most, arranged in a square. The researchers were able to produce a rainbow of colors simply by varying the spacing and diameter of the posts to between 50 nanometers and 140 nanometers.

When light hits the thin metal layer that caps the posts, it sends ripples — known as plasmons — running through the electrons in the metal. The size of the post determines which wavelengths of light are absorbed, and which are reflected …

Although the current process is not practical, it takes several hours to print an image there are some intriguing benefits,

Printing images in this way makes them potentially more durable than those created with conventional dyes. In addition, color images cannot be any more detailed: two adjacent dots blur into one if they are closer than half the wavelength of the light reflecting from them. Since the wavelength of visible light ranges about 380-780 nanometers, the nanoposts are as close as is physically possible to produce a reasonable range of colors.

The researchers believe there may be applications for anti-counterfeiting tags and encoding high density data.

You can read more about the work and find a citation and link to the researchers’ study published in Nature Nanotechnology at the ScienceDaily news item.