Nano novices
About six years ago, Pai Kong, which mainly made raw materials for the Yingko ceramics industry, joined the composite materials research program of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). At that time, they had virtually never even heard the word "nano."
During the R&D process, Huang Sen-kuei, bringing to bear the sensitivity developed in 30 years of knocking around with minerals, found a fantastic mineral ore. He refined it into a sample, finding to his amazement that when just casually rolling the sample around in his hands, he could feel heat. He sent the sample abroad for analysis, and discovered that the heat given off is one of the hottest topics of the moment-far-infrared. Recently one of Taiwan's leading textiles manufacturers, China Petrochemical Development Corporation, decided to invest more than NT$100 million to build a nylon nano-fiber factory. The key material is precisely this heat-producing high purity nano-clay.
What is nano-clay? According to Huang Sen-kuei, Pai Kong's clay comes from a "montmorillonite" (magnesium aluminum silicate) mine. One clay granule with a diameter of one micron has 850 layers of montmorillonite inside, so that the thickness of each layer is only just over one nanometer.
At super-thin widths, most of the atoms contained in a material can be exposed on the exterior, which means that the surface area is greatly increased, thereby greatly enhancing its properties (such as absorbency, flammability, and its ability to act as a gas barrier). Desired results in terms of enhancing certain properties can be achieved by mixing nano-sized montmorillonite into nylon or plastic pellets (such as PET, PS, or ABS).
Nylon nano-fiber, for example, is a mixture of nano-scale clay and nylon particles that can not only produce far-infrared, but also resist bacteria and ultraviolet rays. Even more important is that compared to traditional ceramic fibers, the hardness of the clay is lowered, so it is less likely to fracture during the spinning processing, thereby significantly reducing manufacturing costs. Currently, most of the far-infrared clothing materials on the market are imported, at very high prices, so that the nano-clay produced by Pai Kong could help fill in a "missing link" in the upstream segment of the Taiwanese textile industry.
Finding allies
Besides fibers, Pai Kong is also working to apply nano-clay to the making of PET plastic bottles. PET bottles are one product that seems to be totally unaffected by economic currents, with production value rising year after year. However, PET bottles have poor gas-barrier properties; the contents will lose their flavor or aroma over time.
But when tiny amounts of nano-clay are added in to the PET pellets used to make bottles, this raises gas-barrier properties, heat resistance, and resistance to ultraviolet rays. These features allow PET bottles to be reused and recycled longer. Several bottle manufacturers have already been in contact with Pai Kong; the main problem right now is that the bottle blowing process has to be redesigned, so as yet they cannot mass-produce the product.
Huang Sen-kuei knows that there are many important uses for nano-clay. Some people use it to make thermal insulation pads, others to manufacture high-grade ceramic hotplates, and still others use it as a petroleum-saving additive (it is said that a little bit added to oil or gasoline can increase the horsepower of an engine). Nano-clay can even be of critical importance in the manufacture of motherboard printed circuit board substrate. But the problem is that there is extremely limited demand for these products. Even if you were to add them altogether, demand would be nowhere near enough to absorb the one-ton per day production capacity of the nine-story tall nano-clay kiln, in which Pai Kong has invested more than NT$100 million.
To try to persuade mainstream producers to use his product, Huang Sen-kuei recently organized a "Nano-Clay Applications R&D Alliance," and he has liaised with nearly 40 firms already. However, opportunities are short-lived, and downstream producers have to be able to produce and sell products now. "They don't want to work out how to use a new material even if it's like magic," he says with exasperation. Huang gazes at a report in his hands declaring that "estimated demand for high-purity nano-clay in 2004 will approach 120,000 tons, worth NT$30 billion," and all he can do is sigh.
In other words, for new materials to be put to use, downstream factories must-based on the needs of their individual products-invest a great deal in R&D. If necessary, they must alter their existing production processes, or even build new factories. Unfortunately, Taiwanese firms are mainly structured with weak R&D departments but powerful production and quality control departments. It will take a vast amount of effort to persuade production departments to see new raw materials as something other than a "nuisance."
"If the alliance succeeds, after three years we believe that Pai Kong will be making a very significant contribution to the upgrading of traditional industries in Taiwan," says Huang Sen-kuei. For Pai Kong, which has been biting the bullet for six years now, the greatest gratification will be to see their own products bear fruit.
