Tag Archives: Cnanoz

How to become a futurist; organic technology; clean water with carbon nanotubes

I’ve always wondered how futurists look into the future (and how do they get their jobs?). At last I’ve found the answer to my first question in an article by Jamais Cascio in Fast Company.

In this entry in the occasional series, we’ll take a look at gathering useful data.Like the first step, Asking the Question, Scanning the World seems like it would be easier than it really is. In my opinion, it may actually be the hardest step of all, because you have to navigate two seemingly contradictory demands:

  • You need to expand the horizons of your exploration, because the factors shaping how the future of the dilemma in question will manifest go far beyond the narrow confines of that issue.
  • You need to focus your attention on the elements critical to the dilemma, and not get lost in the overwhelming amount of information out there.

You should recognize up front that the first few times you do this, you’ll miss quite a few of the key drivers; even experienced futurists end up missing a some important aspects of a dilemma. It’s the nature of the endeavor: We can’t predict the future, but we can try to spot important signifiers of changes that will affect the future. We won’t spot them all, but the more we catch, the more useful our forecasts.

The process of opening up and narrowing simultaneously sounds similar to how any kind of research is done, that is, if it’s going to be groundbreaking.

There’s an announcement from India about a new energy-efficient single treatment water purification process. From the news item on Nanowerk,

Minister of Rural Water Supply, Hon. Minister Viswarup and other leaders in Hyderabad, India today. Initial tests, performed at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, confirmed that the majority of the drinking water available in India contains toxins that can be extremely hazardous to human health. The technology developed in collaboration with IIT Kanpur and North Carolina-based Cnanoz can remove harmful pathogens and toxic ingredients, such as Arsenic, Fluoride, Lead, Cadmium, DDT, hydrocarbon wastes and nitrates in an eco-friendly and economical way. Drinking water contaminated with toxic chemicals over an extended period of time can promote harmful gene mutations that can cause neurological disorders, mental and physical disabilities. The preventive aspect of the filtration system can have a significant positive impact to improve public health survival and reduce health care costs.

No word on health and safety or environmental issues or any details about the technology can be found in the announcement so I looked on the website for the company (Cnanoz) that developed the product. Nothing much there either but it is slick and easily navigable.

I’ve gotten more interested in the interplay between organic and  inorganic materials and this research is quite intriguing to me. From the news item on Nanowerk,

Single crystals of the mineral calcite — the chief material in limestone — are predictable, homogeneous and, well, a little boring. But scientists have long marveled at how biological crystals of calcite grow together with other organic materials to form, for example, shells and sea urchin spines. Biologists and materials scientists would love to know exactly how to re-create such natural composites in the lab.

“We knew the organics were in there, but what no one had been able to do up until now was actually see what that organic-inorganic interface looked like,” said [Lara] Estroff [assistant professor of materials science and engineering], whose lab focuses on the synthesis and characterization of bio-inspired materials.

That’s it for today.