WASHINGTON - Today's engineers have developed cutting-edge tools and design techniques for making new, innovative products in more environmentally friendly ways. Can these tools and techniques be used to engineer nanotechnology products that are more energy efficient and nonpolluting than present-day materials and production methods? Can nanotechnology products be engineered to reduce their environmentalimpact throughout their life cycle?

As part of its GreenNano initiative to advance the application of greenchemistry and green engineering principles to nanotechnology, the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies will host a program focused on the engineering prospects for green nanotechnology. The session will explore how environmentally benign manufacturing, and green engineering and design can be integrated into nanoproduct manufacturing. It also will look at the tools engineers need to manufacture nanomaterials and products "greenly," and the engineering challenges posed by moving to the nanoscale.

Nanotechnology is the ability to measure, see, manipulate and manufacture things usually between 1 and 100 nanometers. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter; a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometers wide. There are an estimated 200 consumer products now on the market that claim to contain engineered nanomaterials or to use nanotechnology-everything from cosmetics to computers ... (cont.)

What: Nanotechnology: Green by Design

When: Wednesday, April 26, 2006: 2:30 - 3:30 p.m.

Where: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,5th floor conference room. Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC

Who: julie Chen, Ph.D., Director of Nanomanufacturing
Center of Excellence, University of Massachusetts-Lowell

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... There also are more than 600 electronics components, raw materials, drug delivery technologies, and research, process, and software tools that are used to research nanoscale technologies, manipulate nanomaterials and fabricate at the nanoscale. The National Science Foundation predicts that the global marketplace for goods and services using nanotechnologies will grow to $1 trillion by 2015 and employ 2 million workers.

Speakers at this session will include Dr. Julie Chen, director of the Nanomanufacturing Center of Excellence, University of Massachusetts-Lowell, and Dr. Farhang Shadman, director of the NSF-SRC Engineering Research Center for Benign Semiconductor Manufacturing, University of Arizona. The program will be led by Dr. Barbara Karn, on detail to the Project from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research & Development.

The session will be held on Wednesday, April 26th at 2:30 p.m. in the 5th floor conference room of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. For a complete schedule of GreenNano programs, visit: www.nanotechproject.org

Live Webcast

Farhang Shadman, Ph.D., Director, NSF-SRC Engineering Research Center for Benign Semiconductor Manufacturing, University of Arizona

Barbara Karn, Ph.D., Visiting Scientist, Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies

The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies was launched in 2005 by the Wilson Center and The Pew Charitable Trusts. It is dedicated to helping business, governments, and the public anticipate and manage the possible health and environmental implications of nanotechnology.

Media planning to cover the event should contact Sharon McCarter at (202) 691-4016 or at: Sharon McCarter