Nanotechnology is a discipline in its third decade, but application of nanotech to the oil and gas industry has only recently begun. The first Society of Petroleum Engineers workshop focusing on nanotech was in February of 2008 in Dubai. There are two more scheduled for 2010. The Advanced Energy Consortium, funded by tenmajor oil and gas companies, began operations in January of 2008. It now has more than ten basic research projects underway. They concentrate on nanotech downhole, looking at fundamental interactions of nanoparticles in rock formations and at possible ways to interrogate formations and to report on physical and chemical conditions away from the borehole.

There are many other areas of potential impact of nanotech on the energy industry, including light-weight applications of nanocomposites, durable and corrosion-resistant coatings, catalysts, membrane filters, insulation materials, electrical conductors, batteries, sensors, fluid additives, elastomers, etc. Nanotech will likely offer incremental and revolutionary changes to most technologies in upstream and downstream business. The energy industry lags behind the aerospace, medical, electronics and transportation industries in exploring the breadth and depth of nano applications. Energy companies can adopt and adapt nanotech innovations from these other industries, provided that they employ or train nanoknowledgeable scientists and engineers.

Nanotechnology at Rice University has been huge since the discovery of the “buckyball” in 1985 and the Nobel Prize that followed in 1996 to Rick Smalley and Bob Curl at Rice. The Richard E. Smalley Institute, following the death of Smalley in 2005, now advocates and supports research and education in nanotech with over 140 faculty members in sixteen different departments. Major areas of emphasis include nanomaterials, nanobiology, nanophotonics, nanoelectronics, nanoenvironmental research, nanotech in energy, and outreach to the public. Research in all these areas is important and all receive substantial funding. However, research in energy was considered by Rick Smalley to be both the single

Concept for nanoscopic downhole sensor particles with various types of signaling units incorporated for tailorable sensing and reporting functions. (Courtesy of Jim Tour, Rice University)

Diamond and graphite were the common forms of carbon until the discovery of the buckyball (C60) molecule in 1985, followed by the carbon nanotube in 1991.

Concept of an ordered and oriented fiber of single wall carbon nanotubes, which can conduct very large amounts of electrical current. This would enable a much more power ful grid, and smaller electrical motors and generators.

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most important problem facing humanity today and a magnificent scientific and technical opportunity. Rick’s vision of a long-term future energy system transporting energy around the world as electrons on a smart, high-capacity world-wide grid system can only be realized by a revolution in nanotech. Solving the world’s energy and climate challenges will demand revolutionary breakthroughs in the physical sciences and engineering. Nanotechnology offers unprecedented opportunities for new physical and chemical properties to meet those challenges.

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