NanoScale has developed a proprietary line of safe metal oxides powders we call NanoActive. Our proprietary synthesis methods were developed with a goal of enhancing adsorption kinetics, increasing chemical reactivity, and maintaining the earth mineral safety in nanocrystalline forms for the destruction of toxic materials, including air and water pollutants, hazardous chemicals, biological organisms, and chemical warfare agents.

Our manufacturing techniques produce advanced materials with small crystallite sizes (eg., 2-10 nm), which agglomerate into micron size particles (2-10 μm) and have very high porosity (up to 1.5 cc/g). This porosity allows for the entire particle to be utilized in the reaction. Specifically, the molecular structure allows for higher chemical reaction and faster binding affinity to reactive agents on surfaces or airborne. This highly porous structure enables the materials to absorb substances into the pore space by contact with coordinated unsaturated atoms/ions on the corners and edges of the crystal lattice structure.

During the interaction of a target agent and the NanoActive materials, a two-step decomposition process takes place (first step - adsorption of the target agent on the surface by means of physisorption, followed by a second step - chemical decomposition). This two-step mechanism substantially enhances detoxification abilities of the NanoActive materials by making the decomposition less dependent on the rate of chemical reaction.

Because the surface adsorption remains active at even very low temperatures (in fact, the physisorption is enhanced at low temperatures) and because all potential toxic agents are subject to physisorption (which is then followed by destructive adsorption), NanoActive materials do not have the drawbacks generally observed in chemical reactions. Generally, the rate (speed) of a chemical reaction depends on agent/reagents combination; therefore, for some combinations the rate may be quite low. In addition, the reaction rate usually decreases rapidly at lower temperatures. Because of these reasons, any detoxification method that relies only on chemical reactivity would not work for many toxic agents and would not be effective at low temperatures.