The increasing application of nanotechnologies in enhanced industrial processes and new or improved products poses both a opportunities and challenges to the area of measurement and instrumentation:
- Traditional instruments and measurement techniques are significantly enhanced by nanotechnology-based innovation leading to enhanced selectivity, sensitivity and speed, as well is improved sample-handling, -storage and –parallel analysis processes.
- Entirely new state-of-the-art instruments are being developed, in order to allow characterisation at the nanoscale.
Both the visualisation, detailed chemical and physical analysis and the online detection of nano-scale materials are pushing the envelope of nanotechnology as a key-enabling-technology to provide solutions for the analytical challenges it creates.
During the current debate on the possibility to implement the proposed definitions of ‘nanomaterial’, experts in instrumentation and measurement play a pivotal role by frequently providing insight into the technical feasibility of the demanded characterisation and detection of nanomaterials at a higher accuracy, specificity and reliability than ever realised for other materials and chemical substances, while also allowing an assessment of the economic viability of such state-of-the-art instruments being available in sufficient quantity to form the essential requirement of an entirely new regulation.
NIA Support in Machinery & Metrology
NIA Members benefit from a wide range of activities and projects that provide support in nanotechnology Machinery and Metrology.
