Big award for tiny technology

PA 298/09 A University of Nottingham spin-out company has won a major award for its ground-breaking work in eco-friendly nanotechnology which is pushing the boundaries of green energy and healthcare. Promethean Particles won a prestigious Business Innovation Award at the UK NanoForum and Emerging Technologies Conference 2009. The award recognises pioneering developments in nanotechnology and helps companies further their research and launch commercially viable applications. The company won the award for the development and manufacture of dispersed high-specification inorganic nanoparticles which have uses in green energy storage, for example making solar cells more efficient, and in the healthcare industry. The firm was founded on innovative research by Dr Ed Lester from the University's Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering in collaboration with The School of Chemistry and Dr Sandy Gordon, a Business Science Fellow. This successful collaboration between chemists and chemical engineers generated a reactor that allows the highly-controlled creation of nanoparticles in water. This is a safer, greener and cheaper production method which has wide-ranging high-tech applications from electronics to the healthcare industry.