Halloysite, Halloysite and Halloysite!!, page-233

As I stumble my way along to some sort of threshold knowledge level, I also begin to grasp where Andromeda could fit in with this nanoparticle called Halloysite.

Water purification has been proved at a pilot level by the University of Newcastle, and a concrete additive appears to be being tested.
What has taken me a while to truly comprehend is the nano end of the market and what that really means.
Broad brush, in the future, there will likely hardly be an industry on the planet untouched in some way by nanotechnology.

And it is the field of Additive Manufacturing (known colloquially as 3d printing) that is enabling this nano work to really take place. That is because, due to the freedom of geometries, Additive Manufacturing (AM) can perform fabrication tasks that were not possible by traditional techniques.
It is the opinion of professional experts ( I haven't asked all of them, only a couple!!!!) that due to technological improvements, the ceramic AM market is poised to soon make the same leap forward as those made by polymer and plastics AM.

That is hugely exciting, as the porous nature of ceramic makes it a super vehicle for cell growth and biology, as well as for strengthening (for example inserting carbon into ceramic pores and having a product many times stronger than tungsten). But perhaps most exciting of all, in my opinion, is the idea of using Andromeda plate like halloysite-kaolin to create ceramic nanolattices that are at the top end of theoretical strength modules. To quote a research paper 'Hence, plate-nanolattices deserve strong attention in the development of scalable high resolution additive manufacturing processes, which might in
the future make carbon-based nanoarchitected metamaterials as ubiquitous as carbon composites have become in modern engineering applications.' The paper also notes that although currently 'limited to small specimens, plate-lattices with exceptional size-strengthened constituent materials may be
manufactured by more scalable techniques'. So, we are not there yet, but it is on the cards.

If the nano work proves successful, then the halloysite combined with a carbon structure could well be a modern 'super material', which is a complete game changer for Andromeda. It's really interesting, to me at least, to witness AM moving from just prototyping to becoming a total manufacturing discipline all on its own and demonstrating techniques that have until now been impossible using traditional methods. That is a big shift. And then to find that ceramic is quite possibly in the frame for being one of the best AM materials to work with (totally product dependent, of course!!...), it actually creates a buzz of genuine interest and excitement in something new and ground breaking.