LEGO®

The LEGO Group is collaborating with a team of researchers at the Technical University of Denmark on the possible use of nanotechnology in the manufacture of LEGO bricks.

Imagine a child drops a LEGO brick in a muddy puddle, then picks it up – and it is perfectly clean. Or imagine moulds which can cast the necessary decorated images directly on the face of a LEGO brick – eliminating the need for paint. According to researchers at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), this sort of “magic” will be possible within a few short years – using so‑called nanotechnology or nanotech.

“There isn’t the slightest doubt that there is a potential use for nanotech in the manufacture of LEGO bricks. The technology exists, and the LEGO Group has both production and developmental departments, which is important in developing the technology,” says Anders Kristensen, DTU professor.

Butterfly wings
Nanotechnology allows you to modify the surface structure of a material to produce a different colour. This is achieved by utilising the fact that colours are light waves, with each colour corresponding to a specific length of light wave. When you alter the structure of a surface, you control which light waves it will reflect. In the process you can get the material to change colour without using paint or other pigment.

“It’s the same thing with a butterfly wing. It is microscopic surface structures on the wing that create the colour combinations,” says Prof. Anders Kristensen.

The same method can be used to produce surface structures which reject both water and dirt.
“And nanotechnology would allow us to mould our bricks and apply colours to them at the same time. The absence of paint would reduce the impact on the environment, and self‑cleaning LEGO bricks may appeal to consumers,” says Per Høvsgaard, senior director of Mechatronics and Prototyping – the department where the LEGO Group develops new moulding technologies

Long term potential
There are still, however, a number of challenges to tackle before self‑cleaning bricks become a reality. Researchers at DTU have not yet seriously begun to use nanotechnology in the field of plastics. At present, tests are being conducted on silicon and glass – and it is very expensive to treat a surface just a half millimeter square with nanotechnology.

“The new technology will have to be in mass production before it becomes profitable. Just think of the CD rom. It is treated with nanotechnology and today costs almost nothing to manufacture – precisely because it went into mass production.”

It will be at least four years before the first prototypes of a nanotech LEGO brick may make their appearance.