Nanotechnology and furniture industry in Egypt

Abstract

Day after day, the world develops, and now we can see the 21st century with its many discoveries and inventions which changed the modern man’s lifestyle. One is so impressed and overwhelmed by the extent of the progress in his way of living as man’s lifestyle is now so different than what he had many centuries ago. This development grew to be fast in providing all means of comfort and luxury, faster than one’s predictions and ambitions. The last century went through many stages starting from the period of mixing different elements in molds (to have a new mold with the best characteristics) to the age of electricity and electronics (and dealing with electromagnetic waves and energy saving), ending in wonder land where one can change the characteristics of matters (as mentioned before) and even engineering entirely different matters that didn’t exist in nature such as nanomaterials (Nanotechnology, where the world ends its characteristics which man known to the influence of quantum mechanics on the material properties. Although there is such new technology which can change the characteristics of matters entirely, furniture manufacturing in Egypt suffers from many issues such as importing bad materials from the international market (especially wood with all its types) which negatively affects the quality of products in the local and world market. Thus, manufacturers work hard to avoid and overcome such faults in manufacturing by different technological approaches that might fit with each other. Therefore, the problem of this research is about the industrial society and its unfamiliarity with the latest technology of modern materials and its application, and its unawareness of what fits with the Egyptian industrial needs. This reality leaves us with different questions such as: Can the Nano technology be used to treat materials from the local environment as to help reduce our independence upon faulty or imported materials? Can furniture products be provided with new characteristics such as auto-cleaning? Can these products be stronger, adaptable, and remodeled? What are the available options for altering the characteristics of the furniture paints to make scratch resisting surfaces or to make paint change color according to the environmental heat and one’s comfort inside different spaces? This research aims at studying the different applications of the Nano technology regarding furniture manufacturing by using the survey and the analytic approach to achieve the highest quality of the local furniture so it can compete in the local and the international market.