Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On May 17 this year the inaugural Future Materials Awards for excellence in material innovation were held in Brisbane. I had the great pleasure of representing my colleague the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, the Hon. Ian Macfarlane, at this event. It was a tremendous honour to attend and to present at this awards ceremony, and I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of nominations. The innovation and development that is currently taking place in Australia is outstanding, and all Australians are benefiting from this.

Future Materials was established with federal funding in 2003 to assist the linkage between research institutions and business. While the initial grant will come to an end shortly, the Future Materials team that have operated throughout Australia have raised the profile of material developments, and the networks they have created will carry on and continue to ensure collaboration between researchers and commercial outcomes. The awards ceremony recognised an array of innovative and upcoming companies. Amongst the winners, and many of the nominated companies, a common theme was evident: the reliance on nanotechnology.

As a Queenslander it was also a great pleasure to note that, of the three awards, two of the winners were Queensland companies. The first award category was biotechnology and life sciences, in which the New South Wales company Nanocoatings Pty Ltd was recognised for its innovation in the development of new bone graft technology. Replacement of bone represents a clinical challenge for which there are restricted solutions. Currently the best solution is bone grafts from the patients—those are called autografts—but obviously this has very limited supply, and it may generate further pain at the donor site. Bone grafts from cadavers are also limited by supply, and there is the further concern of viral and prion disease transmission and long-term stability. Of the synthetic substitutes, alloplastic—which is based on hydroxyapatite, a substance derived from coral—is the most promising as it has a composition and structure very similar to bone.

Nanocoatings Pty Ltd has developed a BioAlmog, a new generation of hydroxyapatite-derived bone graft material, with enhanced biochemical and mechanical properties compared to other bone graft materials. It is very strong. The technique for producing the hydroxyapatite can also be applied to orthopaedic, ocular and maxillofacial applications, where the coating technology can be applied to various metallic and ceramic implants and substrates for engineering applications. It has such high protection against high temperature and corrosion and is wear-resistant.

The building and infrastructure awards category recognised a Toowoomba based firm, Coredev Pty Ltd, for their work in the development of a fibre composite pedestrian bridge. Coredev is committed to finding a state-of-the-art alternative to hardwood pedestrian bridges. The firm’s development is lightweight and it can be flat-packed and then assembled using standard construction technology. Furthermore, it has excellent fire resistance. It looks good and requires very little maintenance. At the end of their life, the bridges can also be recycled for use as a high-performance ingredient in cement. The Coredev product has been designed to mimic hardwood timber behaviours, while being more sustainable from an environmental and maintenance perspective. Timber bridges are a significant asset in Australia’s infrastructure inventory. However, this once resilient bridge network is failing, as management becomes increasingly challenged with ageing timber stocks, shortages of replacement timber, increasing traffic loads and limited financial resources. Many timber bridges in the road network will be replaced by steel or concrete, but this is not a solution for the thousands of timber pedestrian bridges in our national and state parks and forests, due to their remote location and moist environment.

The final award category, that of manufactured goods, was awarded to a Queensland based company, Hydrexia Pty Ltd. It was recognised for its work in solid hydrogen storage systems. Demand for hydrogen storage is being driven by the rapid adoption of hydrogen fuel cells, which are expected to replace batteries and fossil fuel powered engines in a wide range of applications due to their superior performance and zero emissions.

The most promising alternative to gaseous and liquid storage is solid hydrate storage, whereby hydrogen is stored as a solid within the structure of a metal alloy. The hydrogen can then be transported as a solid and released as a gas for use in fuel cells or other devices. Hydrexia is commercialising a solid hydrogen storage system based on a novel magnesium-nickel alloy to which certain structure-modifying materials are added. The effect of these additions is to create nano-scale crystal defects in the alloy, giving rise to a large internal surface area on which the hydrating reaction can take place. I take this opportunity to congratulate each of the winning companies, and I acknowledge the great investment this government has made in its support of material technology.

The winning companies not only showcase Australia’s strength in research capacity but also highlight the necessity and continued enhancement of our development and niche manufacturing-commercialisation agenda. As previously mentioned, a common thread between the winning companies and many of the other nominated firms is nanotechnology. Without elaborating in great detail the science of nanotechnology, it is the manipulation of matter at the sub-100 nanometre scale to harness size-dependent properties—structural, electrical, thermal, magnetic and optical. Or, in very basic terms, a nanometre is one billionth of a metre.

By being able to break matter into molecular and atomic levels, it creates the ability to harness energy that exists only at that scale. It is about the incorporation of matter into materials, thus changing the composition of products as we currently know them. International research has forecast that goods, including nanotechnology, will be valued at between $US1 trillion and $US2.6 trillion by 2015, with employment of about 10 million people. Based on these figures, the Queensland Chief Scientist, Professor Peter Andrews, recently made some calculations of earnings for Australia. It is his expectation that nanotechnology will be worth up to $60 billion for Australia, with employment of 125,000 persons. Nanotechnology is already incorporated into many daily consumer products, ranging from drug technology, energy, water, clothing fabrics, scratch-resistant paints, antifog and self-cleaning glass, through to household whitegoods that kill bacteria.

Australia’s first industry based facilitation body for the nano sector, the Queensland Nanotechnology Alliance, recently presented me with a pair of socks that incorporate silver nano particles which prevent foot odour and eliminate infections. While socks may seem like a novel idea, keep in mind that, for those Australians working long shifts in humid conditions, this product will aid personal comfort and will positively impact on staff productivity, with fewer workers claiming compensation based on foot infection.

At the end of the day, the nano community believes that, while researching and building the technology is of paramount importance, it is the ability to develop these products with commercial outcomes that will have real economic benefits for Australia.