Nanotechnology enabling advances for war fighters.

• Author: Jean, Grace
• Position: NANOTECHNOLOGY

The science of manipulating molecules and atoms holds promise for many industries, Military scientists say nanotechnology will have the most impact upon the individual soldier.

"The single most dramatic change will be at the war-fighter level, simply because we haven't helped the war-fighter nearly as much as we've helped other things," said James Murday, who heads the chemistry division at the Naval Research Laboratory. "Take a tank from World War I versus a tank now. There's no comparison," he said. Big platforms like those tanks, as well as planes and ships, have benefited from numerous technological advancements. But the individual war-fighter has not benefited as much, he said.

Researchers are working to advance the individual war-fighter using nanotechnology--from improving the meals he eats and the clothing he wears to enhancing the devices and weapons he uses and the armor in which he fights.

Scientists at the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass., are using nanocomposites to improve the packaging system for meals ready to eat (see related story).

"Just as those materials are good at preventing oxygen from reaching food, other nanocomposites are effective at preventing the permeation of chemical war agents through materials and films," said Michael Sennett, a research chemist at the center.

"What nanotechnology may be able to do that other technologies cannot is to put a large number of functional capabilities into one piece of material without one thing interfering with another," he said.

For instance, making uniforms water repellant and breathable, with some odor control technology, as well as protection from chemical and biological agents.

Soldier conditions run the gamut from the desert to the arctic and the tropic, said Sennett. "You'd really like to have a material system for your uniforms that was comfortable...