TEDxJakarta - Dr. Nurul Taufiqu Rochman - Indonesia From A Nanotechnology Perspective

Assalamualaikum Wr, Wb. Greetings to all of us. Allow me to say, how humbled I am to be able to share a bit of how I view Indonesia, the nation dear to us, through the perspective of nanotechnology The story begins When I see how abundant our natural resources the natural resources we have like minerals. We do exploration, exploitation, then we export -- sell it abroad .. .. at a fairly cheap price. Including Anomali's coffee (giggling) At a very low price and huge volume even sometimes it could harm our own environment. All of sudden, after a while .. We make purchase -- import them back at a fairly expensive price 2, 3, 10, 100, even 1000 times more expensive It is the same raw material. Processed abroad, but sent back to Indonesia. When in fact, I, as a scientist focused on nanotechnology, engineer materials from something that may have no value as in having no distinct character to something that is highly valuable. So if we transform them into products, its price can be very expensive. This is why, we can utilize our natural resources and engineer it with nanotechnology. Maybe we could find a new way to look at how we should utilize our natural resources. I want to actually start with well, I've been talking about it though, but what is nanotechnology? We know the candy "Nano-nano", iPod nano, or .. this guy who appears often on TV, Nano Karno Nano is short for nanometer. With metric size of 1/10 to the power of 1 million. How thin or how small is nano? Now imagine your hair, being split not 7 times. To get 1 nano you need to split the hair 50.000 times! Only after 50.000 times, we would get 1 nanometer from our hair. So if we were to assume this metric to be the same as our earth Then nano is as big as a pingpong ball. Why then nano becomes so important? We have the same material. We have the same thinking. As an example, Graphite and diamond. Now ladies and gentlemen, you may take your pick... Both are the same material. But why one is so expensive and the other is less expensive? You see, for the size of this graphite its structure is 0.6 to 2 nano And that's what the structure looks like. But, diamond's structure is different, it is more rigid. So a diamond's character is rigid, good, and shiny. Too bad it doesn't conduct electricity. While graphite is weeker but conducts electricity. Recently, we discovered what we call carbon nano tube with power 250 times greater than steel, and conducts electricity. Strong and conduct electricity? We have nothing like that in the past. There's another discovery from the same raw material, carbon fluorence. Or any other raw material. One carbon has many shapes. Same material, but different shapes and structures. Ladies and gentleman, a gold may look yellow-ish to you But on nano level, its color changed into red. What happened? This is what the new perspective is all about. A new paradigm to look at technology. Human and any other thing in this world, each is shaped by its nano size. Nano material is like Lego blocks. What does the Lego blocks look like for a human? We compose oxygen, nitrogen, and hidrogen as big as 2 nanometer, in a shape of DNA. This becomes the building block for any human being. Its amount is in thousands, even millions. The same building blocks, from Adam to the last person on earth. What makes it different is the composition points. The hydrogen is here, the nitrogen is there. They are the same materials, but we are all different. Aside for having different natal lottery, like Beckham's or Tukul's, We are all different at nano level. Our composer is different. Not only humans, ladies and gentleman. But all things. Even dead things. Everything is different when we put it in nano context. The characters will be different too. This is what I want to share with you. There are a lot of nano phenomenons in nature. Geckos can run on ceiling, without falling down. That's because they have spatula nano. Fire flies carry electric generator on their back and they light up all night Chameleons Who can change their colors to red, green, and other colors. This is all because of nano. Through my research, I found that Copper oxide carbon, when put into water with size of 150 nm the color change into green when it is 50 nanometer, its color change into brown. It's the same material. But different scale creates different character. What happens it that, We can control the size of the particle we try to engineer through different attributes. This is a fairly simple example, ladies and gentlemen. Take a look at toners. They have black filling It looks like the carbon, can be expensive, from Rp 10.000 to Rp. 100.000 When it fact it is actually made from iron sand. Do you know how much does iron sand costs? Rp 100 Yesterday I found one that seels Rp 60 per kilogram. Next thing we know, they get exported to Singapore, destroyed and purified to about 500 nanometer, transform it to be a toner that cost many times more. There are a lot of nano products in the market. They say nano is synonymous with hi-tech computer. Actually, not really. You see on the TV, Fatigon! With nano ginseng. Or Anlene, with nano calcium. Or perhaps you may have tried and worn it already, bacteria-free socks. Odorless socks. Here's an example, nano textile. You can see it from the video here... This is nano textile. They are dirt-free. You splash water, soy sauce, on to it Even if you dip it into dirty water, they don't get dirty. This means detergent won't make sales here.. Right? These are nano shoes. You can jump 6 times higher. Another example is the bullet-proof vest Very light but once get shot at the material becomes stronger. Another example is this chameleon suit. Great for camouflage. There are a lot of nano applications in Indonesia. One example that is more common is the anti-fog application for cars. So your car doesn't get foggy when it rains, specially here in Indonesia. Spraying nano particles would make it fog-free. There are more than a thousand of nano products. They are are available in our market. If we do not make an action on it, well that'll be too bad. Nano will make another industrial revolution. There are 4 major industrial revolutions happened in our time. And each revolution takes about 50 years. So 200 years later, nanotechnology arrives and its impact is as big as the previous revolutions but takes a fairly shorter period of time to do that. Very short time! Now this is what the experts have predicted. We need to involve ourselves and move fast. Indonesia has great potentials We are the 3rd biggest in Asia, 4th in the world Rich in source of energy, natural resouces, and biodiversity. I went to school in Japan. In Japan, there are only 4 kinds of fruits. buah itu cuma 4 jenisnya. They are apple, grapes, orange, and persimmons perhaps. They don't have juwet fruit, durin, snake fruit, mangosteen, star fruit, like we do. No sawo fruit, no dragon fruit. That's it. There are only those 4 kinds of fruits in Japan. These fruits are actually a source of medicine. They come in different sources. Take a look at curcummas, ladies and gentlemen. When we go to the market, you can get them for only Rp 2.000! Temulawak.. Pupuk aja harganya sekilo itu, 1000 yah. But fertilizers costs Rp 1000 per kilogram. You can't break even with this scenario. But if these curcummas can be transformed into herbal medicine through its nano particles The price becomes Rp 1 million per kilogram Just imagine that. Now this is cat's whisker leaves. Germans who travel to Indonesia hunt for these herbal leaves. The leaves are used as traditional medicine for gallbladder stone, high blood pressure, and so on. Imagine if we can nanofy cat's whisker leaves. The price can go up from Rp 100.000 to 10 million per kilo! This is amazing. There are no cat's whisker leaves in Japan Just look for it, if you don't believe me. Now this is gambier leaves. Native to Sumatra. You take the extract and its price is Rp 20.000 per kilogram. I'm saddened by this fact. This is then sold to the Indians. And then.. they take the extract. Indonesia supplies 80% of the world's demand for medicines that use katekin. Imagine. These leaves are only Rp 20.000 per kilogram. In Europe, they sell if for 80 Euros per gram, or 100 million per kilogram. How is this possible? We live in a 'rich' country. Now this is silica sand, ladies and gentlemen. We put them in containers and send them out. This is then made into nano silica. The other day I bought nano silica particles for Rp 3.5 million per kilogram. Uuhh, amazing. So what should we do then? That's why ladies and gentlemen, let us take another look on our natural resources. I don't think we need to be concerned about keeping up with this technology. For example, I did not know that this super slim computer costs 3.3 million rupiah. Hah? It's 3.3 million rupiah, ladies and gentlemen. You then wonder, how much profit are they making? They have to invest in equipments, in technology Getting your doctor's degree does not mean you can make this. Really! I went for my PhD and I could not create this yet!. 14 years I spent studying in Japan. And I cannot make this equipment. Go figure! Let's take a look at cellphones. Super tiny cellphones. Not an Indonesian brand. Super tiny! I got this for Rp. 180.000, plus Rp 50.000 voucher! How much profit do these developed countries make? Imagine! We can buy cellphone with 1 kilo of uuh... Try buy a car with only 10 kilos of gambir leaves. That's the way to do it, right? If only we could master nanotechnology. So ladies and gentlemen, looking at the big players what is our chance to be in the game? The big players happen to be start ups in China and India. These start ups crushed the big guys. According to Cientifica The demand for nano particles have increased by 10 times, from 2005 to 2010. It is predicted that it will continue to increase. So we are on the right track, ladies and gentlemen. Nanotechnology becomes the key word here. In Korea, The president said "Go Nano or Die". That's why they came up with nano ginseng. In Indonesia, we can make nano curcumma, nano coffees, and many more. That's why, ladies and gentlemen. Take another look at our natural resources that can become something valuable. An asset that we need to sustain wisely. I'd like to share with you our experience, the happy and sad moments in developing nanotechnology. We can start the video. This is a project I call Project Z. If Japan has Project X, we have project Z. This is our team. After numerous meetings, we approach industries, small medium enterprises, and check their technology. They might look a bit sad, but there's no problem. We are also sad people, actually so don't worry (laugh) What matters is the output, right? This is how you catch gas, ya. Alhamdulillah, we were able to make nano particles from it. This can cost around Rp 500.000 per kilogram. Nah, ini kita juga men-design peralatan di Indonesia, We also design and make equipments in Indonesia We just make our own stuff. No need to buy expensive equipments. We have around 11 patented products that we have sold. We even sell it to Malaysia. Our fellow colleagues from Malaysia bought the equipments from us. This is a huge equipment, weighing 2 tonnes. These are the products that we have, an array of powders that we make. And many more. We have worked with several industries now. In addition, we also establish our own nano community where friends can join. We are currently profiling 100 nano doctors. We also attend international conferences, representing Indonesia. This is when we released the MoU with ITS president, Pak Nuh, who is now a Minister. This is the MoU we released with UI (University of Indonesia). Also with Sinergi, and colleagues from UNDIP (Universitas Diponegoro). And with the Dean of UNDIP as well. And this is with an industry that would like to collaborate with us. So I think, this is it from me. Thank you.