When a new interactive lottery game is field-tested this summer by the Pennsylvania Lottery, the ink on the electronic scratch ticket will come from something that may surprise you: nanotechnology.

The tiny Bensalem company that makes the ink, PChem Associates Inc., works in the burgeoning field of nanotechnology, which creates new materials as small as a nanometer, or about 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

PChem is one of at least 15 companies in the Philadelphia area doing research and working on potential products based on nanotechnology. The Bucks County company is one of the few with an actual product.

Nanotechnology was an emerging field just five or 10 years ago. Researchers knew they could do new things with the ability to tinker with atoms and molecules.

Now their discoveries and technological innovations are beginning to pay off with products - ranging from high-performance sporting equipment to stain-resistant clothing, paints that aim to be antimicrobial and go on smoother, sunscreens and cosmetics containing nanomaterials, and computer chips.

Companies and research institutions in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have generated 185 nanotechnology patents and published patent applications since 1998, according to Thomson Scientific, a research company with offices in Philadelphia.

PChem makes silver nanoparticles - slightly larger than a molecule - for a water-based ink used on printed electronics. At the nanoscale, PChem's ink is highly electrically conductive and fast - printing 300 to 500 feet of paper a minute. The ink works at lower manufacturing temperatures that will not scorch paper.

Because of the miniature size of the silver particle and the surface shape, PChem says its ink also uses less silver than traditional larger-particle silver-based inks.

Revenues, $100,000 last year, are expected to increase four to six times this year, said co- founder Gregory Jablonksi.

That's because Scientific Games, the world's largest maker of scratch-off lottery tickets, is buying ink from PChem for a new electronic scratch-off ticket game recently sold to lotteries in Quebec, Oregon and Kansas. Pennsylvania plans to test-market the interactive game, possibly in June.

"Nanotechnology has incredible potential to solve some of the biggest problems we face as a society, whether that's curing cancer, or providing renewable energy, clean water, whatever," said Andrew Maynard, chief scientist for the Project on Emerging Technologies at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a nonpartisan public-policy institute in Washington. "But we have to learn how to use it wisely and safely."

Some scientists suggest the unique properties of nanomaterials might pose health and environmental risks. "We really don't know all the answers we need to know," Maynard said.

There have been "no reported accidents anywhere in the world" caused by nanoparticles or nanotechnology products, said Mihail "Mike" Roco, the National Science Foundation's senior adviser on nanotechnology.

Since 2000, when the federal government spent $270 million for nanotechnology, federal funding has grown steadily to $1.5 billion in 2008. About $70 billion worth of products incorporate nano components or devices in the United States, Roco said.

The only thing nano companies have in common is that the technology they work in is very, very small. Nanotechnology crosses a multitude of fields, from the semiconductor industry - and the Intel microprocessers in computers - to chemistry and biology, making particles small enough to circulate in the bloodstream, get into tissues, and treat and diagnose disease.

One local nano company, Sunstone BioSciences Inc., at the Science Center in University City, is working with scientists at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania on nano crystals that attach to medicines injected into the blood that target cancer tumors. Once inside tissue, the crystals emit visible light that activates the anticancer drug to shrink tumors. So far it has been shown to work in mice.

"Philadelphia is one of the emerging players in this field of nanotechnology and well-positioned to take advantage of the UPenns, Drexels, and the dozens of universities within a 20-mile radius," said physicist Dale Pfost, Sunstone BioScience's chairman and former chief executive of Acuity Pharmaceuticals, Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia in 2000, a Nanotechnology Institute was created as a partnership between the state-funded economic-development group Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, the University of Pennsylvania, and Drexel University. The group today includes 12 area research institutions, which have assisted or created 13 start-up companies and attracted more than $172 million in public and private investment.

"The idea was to break down barriers to commercialization," said Anthony Green, Ben Franklin's vice president of technology commercialization.

The institute now has a Nano Commercialization Group, which is working to bundle intellectual property involving nanotechnology inventions and create "packages" to license to outside companies, Green said. The universities whose technology is licensed will share in the proceeds, he said.

Since 2000, the state of Pennsylvania has given the institute $19.8 million for nanotechnology research and development, including $3.5 million announced last month.

In 2004, chemical engineers Greg Jablonski and Mike Mastropietro left a New Jersey printed-electronics firm where they worked with an idea to make an ink faster, cheaper, and at lower temperatures. PChem's technology can print metal on such things as radio-frequency identification devices and display screens that filter out radiation.

Scientific Games consultant Ken Irwin discovered PChem by searching the Internet.

"We needed a highly conductive ink to go into this ticket. We were not even sure such a thing was available," Irwin said. "I hit the Internet, did the usual research. We narrowed it down to five, six companies. PChem was by far the most cooperative and enthusiastic."

PChem trucks 15 to 20 gallons of ink a month to Atlanta, where Scientific Games prints 1.5 billion lottery tickets each month on presses about the size of a football field. A gallon of PChem ink sells for $7,000 to $12,000. PChem sends employees to oversee the printing.

The new lottery game, Push Play, works by inserting an electronic ticket, which might sell for $5, or $20 for a ticket and a handheld game machine. The machines range in size but can be as small as a credit card.

"The lottery ticket is printed with an electronic circuit," Irwin said. "We use laser beams to alter the circuitry on the printing presses. Each ticket is programmed. The ticket looks like a regular paper ticket. The machine will play out to whatever that ticket tells it to play out to." Cards are activated by a scratch-off label.

Players choose among games such as Lucky Sevens, Five Card Stud poker, Battleship and Roulette. Winning tickets can be redeemed at the location where they were bought.

China is interested in the new lottery game, Irwin said.

PChem is gearing up to expand manufacturing, and said it will soon double its capacity - currently about 60 gallons a month - at its plant near Interstate 95 and Street Road.

The company is negotiating with a Japanese electronics materials company, Dowa International Corp., to manufacture the ink in Shanghai.

"We can manufacture enough ink here to keep Scientific Games going the next two or three years," Jablonski said. "When they [Scientific Games] go to China, by itself that will be two billion new product tickets. We are in the process of setting up manufacturing there right now."

Nanotechnology: In Paint, in Pants, It's Everywhere

Nanotechnology is creeping into your life in ways you may not imagine. Here are some examples:

Floor, safety glass and mirror cleaners, from Larson Century Ranch Inc.

Nano-Tex Sheet Set, from JC Penney Co.

Antibacterial kitchenware and pet products, from Nano Care Technology Ltd.

Antibacterial Silver Athletic and Lounging Socks, from Sharper Image

iPhone and iPod Nano, by Apple Inc.

Head Nano.Titanium Tennis Racquets, from Head

Beer-bottle plastics, from multiple manufacturers

Behr Premium Plus Exterior and Kitchen & Bath paints, from Behr Process Corp.

First Response Home Pregnancy Test, from Carter-Wallace

De Walt Cordless Power-tool Set, from Black & Decker

Double L Chinos, from L.L. Bean

Chemical-Free Sunscreen SPF 15, from Burt's Bees Inc.

SOURCE: The Project on Emerging Technologies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Pew Charitable Trusts, Philadelphia

Companies in the Philadelphia Area Working on Nanotechnology Products

BioNanomatrix Inc.
Philadelphia
Develops technology to sequence an individual human genome in eight hours for $100.

Gelifex Inc. (acquired by Synthes Inc.)
Philadelphia
Develops hydrogels to be inserted between the vertebrae to alleviate back pain.

LifeSensors Inc.
Malvern
Develops medical protein production services for therapeutic, diagnostic and research markets.

Magnetic Biosystems
Drexel University – Philadelphia
Develops a targeted drug delivery system to deliver specific dosages of therapeutic agents.

Minus Nine Technologies Inc. (NanoSelect spinoff)
Philadelphia Navy Yard
Processes nanoparticles for industrial resins with commercial applications.

NanoBlox Inc.
Philadelphia and Florida
Develops nanodiamond structures (miniature carbon particles) for biomedical and industrial uses.

NanoMaterials Co.
Malvern
Develops a reactor to mass produce complex nanopowders.

NanoPack Inc.
Wayne
Develops packaging materials that extend foodproduct shelf life, and other applications.

NanoSelect Inc.
Newark, Del.
Develops chemical and biological sensors to monitor the quality of municipal water systems.

PChem Associates
Bensalem
Produces silver nanoparticles to produce highly conductive electronic circuits.

PhenoTech Inc.
Philadelphia
Develops diagnostic products for blood typing.

PolyMedix Inc.
Radnor
Develops therapeutic drug products for life-threatening disorders.

Reacta Corp.
Philadelphia
Enhances biomolecules used in food and cleaning products.

Sunstone BioSciences Inc.
Philadelphia
Develops nanomaterials for medical and life sciences applications, including photodynamic cancer therapy.

Y-Carbon Inc.
Philadelphia Navy Yard
Develops nanostructured carbon materials to improve supercapacitors, gas storage, water purification and fuel-cell catalysts.

SOURCE: Ben Franklin Technology Partners, S.E. Pa.