‘Carbon reduction target: Nanotechnology key to cleaner energy’

POPULATION and economic growth are the main drivers of global energy demand. With the increasing global demand for energy, meeting future needs with the finite energy resources and protecting our planet presents a challenge, the magnitude of which existing energy approaches, even with improvements from advanced engineering and improved technology based on known concepts, will not be enough to secure our energy future.

According to Dr Olugbenga Falode, the immediate past Head of the Department of Petroleum Engineering and currently the Deputy Director at the Centre for Petroleum, Energy Economics & Law, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, nanotechnology holds the key to providing energy that is cleaner than any fossil fuel or alternative energy technology in existence.

Dr Falode, in his paper, “Small size matters: Meeting the energy challenge and carbon reduction targets,” stated that “In the discourse about the future of energy, most attention is devoted new production technologies, from photo-voltaic (PV) cells to hydrogen generation, from piezoelectric to thermoelectric materials. These are all very important technologies which will probably contribute in different extents to our future energy mix.

“However, for cleaner energy technologies to be competitive in the area of cheap and abundant shale oil and gas, more disruptive research is required. Nanotechnology holds the opportunity to provide breakthroughs that the energy industry so desperately needs.

“Producing clean, abundant energy is not sufficient. There are other very important challenges that need to be solved, such as massive and efficient energy storage and transportation. We need new technologies that will help us to deal with constant changes in the demand of energy. From advanced batteries to ultracapacitors, nanotechnology is providing key contributions for smarter transformation of energy.”

He added that a more pertinent aspect of the use of nanotechnology in this wise was the “opportunity to save energy through gains in efficiency, for example by using nanostructured catalysts optimised for specific processes or through reduction in energy losses.”

Dr Falode explained nanotechnology to be science at the smallest scale, and allows us to manipulate the fundamental building block of all matter which is called atom.

“By designing and tweaking materials at nano level, scientists can create super materials with incredible new chemical, electrical and physical properties never thought possible.

“By re-engineering the way we generate, transmit and use energy at the nano scale, we will be able to create energy technologies that are far cleaner, than any of the fossil fuel or alternative energy technologies around today.”

Energy-related technologies in which nanotechnology may play a role include heating, transportation, renewable energy, fuel cells, hydrogen generation and storage and carbon capture.

Statistics have it that global energy demand is expected to increase by as much as 37 per cent between 2013 and 2035.