It is rare for a single technology to have the power to dramatically influence almost every major industry in the world. Nanotechnology falls into this category and offers fundamentally new capabilities to architect a broad array of novel materials, composites and structures on a molecular scale. This technology has the potential to drastically re-define the methods used for developing lighter, stronger, and high-performance structures and processes with unique and non-traditional properties.
This paper focuses on some of the automotive applications for nanotechnology and showcases a few of them that are believed to have the highest probability of success in this highly competitive industry.
No discussion of nanotechnology is complete without touching upon its health and environmental implications. This paper addresses some of the safety issues and the precautions that we as an automotive industry need to take in the production, processing, storage and handling of such minute particles.
The goal of this paper is to raise the awareness on the promise of nanotechnology and the potential impact it will have on the future of the automotive industry.