Nanotechnology commercialization: World and Korean trends and their perspectives

Recently, nanotechnology(NT) commercialization is becoming increasingly emphasized. In this paper, we review the world and Korean trends of NT commercializations. Many products using the so-called classical benefits of NT which exploit the characteristics of the increased surface-to-volume ratio and the reduced mass of the particles can be found in the market. But the quantum and self-organizing properties peculiar to NT are observed to be still far away from being fully exploited at the industrial level. The necessities of advanced old industries to fully benefit the enabling technology characteristics of NTs are also discussed taking the Korean nanodevice industries and nanomedical technologies as an example. This survey leads us to conclude that the commercial sector of Korean NTs shows more innovative characteristics rather than disruptive ones. It is also argued that the market size of energy-related NT and nanomedicine sub-areas has a great potential to grow in near feature. However, insufficient basic researches for the hierarchical assembly o f complicated nanostructures and functionalities, and the need of large investments for their commercializations as well as the public reluctance to accept nano-products will be the main obstacles to the NT commercialization.