Anne McIlroy | FrogHeart

The Canadian nanotechnology business scene lit up, so to speak, late last week with articles about two companies, Vive Nano (based in Ontario) and Quantium Technologies (based in Alberta).

Anne McIlroy, science reporter for the Globe and Mail newspeper reported on October 8, 2010 (from her article, Nanotechnology firm sets sights on India) that

The president and CEO of Toronto-based nanotechnology firm Vive Nano [Keith Thomas] was looking for new clients, and he was prepared to talk about how Vive Nano’s nanomaterials can help protect crops or remove contaminants, such as textile dye effluents, from industrial waste water.

Keith Thomas didn’t expect to be asked so many personal questions on his first visit to a large company in India.

The president and CEO of Toronto-based nanotechnology firm Vive Nano was looking for new clients, and he was prepared to talk about how Vive Nano’s nanomaterials can help protect crops or remove contaminants, such as textile dye effluents, from industrial waste water.

But first, he had a 45-minute chat with a staff member who asked him about his life, his wife and family.

“He wanted to take the measure of the man,” Mr. Thomas says.

Vive Nano is now working on two Indian projects, including one with the first company he visited. The privately-held firm employs 18 people, and two thirds of them hold a non-Canadian passport. Its clients include large chemical companies, but in 2008, two years after the company was founded, it seemed prudent to look for other markets, Mr. Thomas says.

Vive Nano wanted to focus on one country, and it picked India. There is an aggressive, entrepreneurial business style there, says Mr. Thomas, and huge interest in novel technology.

… scientists continue to investigate how they [nanoparticles] affect living organisms, including humans, and they are evaluating them for their potential toxicity and impact on the environment. The company is sensitive to the possibility that people may have concerns about nanotechnology, says Mr. Thomas, and it is part of a federally funded study at the University of Alberta that is testing the toxicity of nanoparticles.

McIroy’s article comes on heels of Vive Nano’s Sept. 14, 2010 media release about selling industrial-sized quantities of nanoparticles (from the item on Nanowerk),

Vive Nano is committed to driving down the cost of high-quality nanomaterials. The company’s pilot plant is now producing more than 5 tons/year of nanoparticles of Ceria, Magnetite, Silver and Zinc Oxide. Vive is offering samples up to 20L and full-scale production runs are available.

Vive’s nanoparticles are ultra-small (less than 10nm), non-agglomerating, and water dispersible, allowing simple incorporation into existing products and processes.

Vive Nano Magnetite nanoparticles are superparamagnetic with numerous novel applications in industry, medicine and research. Silver, Zinc Oxide and Ceria applications include catalysis, UV absorption and environmental treatment.

Business is not really my field but this looks to be a leap from a small, R&D-focused and project-based company to a more substantive manufacturing concern. If you’re interested in Vive Nano, their website is here.

Meanwhile in Alberta, Quantium Technologies (mentioned briefly in my August 21, 2009 posting) has made a bit of a splash with its recent announcement that it’s building a 34,000-square-foot (3,159-square-metre) production plant in Edmonton. From the news item on Nanowerk,

Quantiam Technologies Inc., this month’s featured innovator at Edmonton Research Park, is bringing Edmonton the potential of nanotechnology to benefit the environment and transform the city’s economy. The 12-year-old nanomaterials and clean-tech company and its 15 employees create, manufacture and apply advanced coatings based on the science of how materials interact with each other at the smallest detectable scale, such as the first few layers of atoms on the surface of a steel pipe.

Quantiam founder and CEO Dr. Steve Petrone and a small, PhD-rich team began the business by developing coatings that provide superior wear resistance to steel equipment. In addition to customers in petrochemicals, the oil sands, mining, oil and gas, Quantiam is working with the U.S. Defense Department to provide improved armored protection for soldiers and military vehicles.

Quantiam is building a 34,000-square-foot (3,159-square-metre) production plant in the Edmonton Research Park advanced technology centre, where it will join an innovation community of more than 50 companies. “From small start-up firms to global corporate players, Edmonton Research Park provides the environment where exciting developments like those of Quantiam Technologies can grow and thrive,” says the park’s manager, Neil Kaarsemaker.

The new facility, expected to open early in 2011, will house the most advanced private-sector nanotechnology research lab in Canada, an example of ERP’s commitment to its biotechnology business development centre.

How does housing the “most advanced private-sector nanotechnology research lab in Canada” act as an example of a commitment to a biotechnology business development centre? [emphases mine]

The news item posted October 7, 2010 on the Azonano website provides a slightly different picture of Quantium’s building project. I gather the information came from a different source. You can find out more about Quantium on their website although portions of it seem to be under construction.

Continuing on from yesterday’s (Sept. 30, 2009) posting about the ISEA 2009 panel discussion, Is the (Art) World Ready for Bioart?, the most striking comment was from Laura Sillars of FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology located in Liverpool, UK) who suggested that risk assessments could be included as part of the presentation/curating process for bioart exhibitions. It never occurred to me that I’d hear the term risk assessment applied to an art exhibition and it was a revelation.

When I compared Tangy Duff’s (the artist whose work was first accepted but ultimately not exhibited) mindset to scientists, it was this comment of Laura Sillars’ that stimulated my insight. I was reminded of the scientists in the biotechnology sector who were thoroughly unprepared for the GM (genetically modified) food panics (Europe, US, UK, Canada, and elsewhere) and stem cell research (largely in the US) panics, which affected public acceptance and public funding for their research.

The scientists (and government policy makers) did learn that public awareness and public engagement as well as discussions about risk assessments are important with bio and other new, emergent technologies.

Upon reflection and after considering Duff’s experience, it now seems obvious that emerging practices such as bioart which are so closely aligned to new and emergent technologies/sciences require at least some of the same discussions.

(Kudos to the organizers at ISEA 2009 for opening up the discussion about this situation with Duff’s canceled art exhibit to the attendees. I found much of the programming quite thought-provoking and this panel was just a sample of what was on offer.)

As for public awareness about new and emerging technology such as nanotechnology, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced (here) a new research strategy to study nanomaterials. The EPA also has a website where they provide general information. (Scroll down and click on the links down the page below the image and the title Nanotechnology Research. The links above the title take you to the general EPA information.) This announcement and the website come on the heels of the UK public information website (Nano & Me) that was recently launched. (I posted about this and other UK initiatives earlier this week, here.) I will come back to these initiatives when I post part 4 of my Science communication in Canada series.

There’s a tempest brewing over the alleged government (of Canada) interference in a conference, Israel/Palestine Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. I first mentioned the controversy here. From the G&M, this last June. It has emerged again as a story in the Globe and Mail (G&M) and in the international journal, Science. From the G&M article, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2009, Government threatened grant agency over Mideast conference by Anne McIlroy, science reporter,

The Science Minister’s [Gary Goodyear] chief of staff warned the arm’s-length agency that finances social-science research in Canada that it could lose any chance of an increase in the next federal budget over a controversial conference on Israel and Palestine, according to an internal e-mail.

and,

At the time of the e-mail, the minister’s office was pressing SSHRC to revisit its decision to provide $19,750 to Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace, hosted June 22-24 in Toronto by York and Queen’s universities.

Jewish groups had been complaining about federal support for the conference, which they objected to because it questioned Israel’s right to exist

I’ve read the conference description and I find that last claim (if accurately described) to be a leap. I understand the concern but the conference description is carefully neutral, while noting the strife and proposing a discussion about a number of possible models that might better address the needs of the peoples in that region. I have no doubt that the question of Israel’s right to exist arose but the conference was not designed to stimulate that particular discussion rather it was to consider all the possibilities and the impact that the current situation has had on the people in the region.

Thanks to Rob Annan for posting about the SSSHRC funding situation and possible federal budget fallout. If you want to read more about it, pursue links, and enjoy a few pithy comments, go to Rob Annan’s postings for the last few days at Don’t leave Canada behind.

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Tag Archives: Anne McIlroy

Publicity for Canadian nano companies, Quantium Technologies and Vive Nano