Nano Man: Our Neighbor Matthew Hull - Southwest Times

By WILLIAM PAINE

william.paine@southwesttimes.com

Matthew Hull first came to the attention of The Southwest Times as someone who provided a high-tech medical fabric for individuals who volunteered to make masks for the COVID-19 outbreak. For some reason, this fellow Hull seemed to know a lot about which kind of fabrics work best at filtering out viruses.

It turns out Hull may know more than just about anybody when it comes to keeping safe from all manner of tiny things.

Hull is a research scientist who works in environmental nano technology at Virginia Tech’s Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science. He’s worked there since attaining his doctorate in Environmental Engineering at VT.

Matthew Hull grew up in the rural Robinson Tract area.

“You’ve heard of tree huggers,” said Hull. “But from where I was born and raised, I valued economic activity and job growth. So being able to balance environmental conservation and economic needs has always been a priority of mine. Our current situation exemplifies our environmental challenges. We want to protect people to keep them healthy, but we’re really struggling because people need to go back to work. So I work on problems like that to some extent.

It’s not hard to picture a younger Matthew Hull playing defensive end on the PCHS football team. Hull is a big, robust fellow who smiles easily. He started dating his wife Sherry as a senior and after graduating in 1996, both Pulaski County natives attended Ferrum College. Matthew played tight end on Ferrum’s football team and after both graduated, the couple married in August 2000.

“For my master’s degree, I worked a lot down in far Southwest Virginia looking to preserve species on the Clinch River,” recounted Hull. “There are bumper stickers down there that say ‘Coal Keeps the lights on’ and if you don’t value that, you’re kind of missing the point. We have to protect the environment, but we also have to make sure we balance people’s ability to provide for themselves.”

After finishing his master’s, Hull began working for Luna Technologies, a company that had converted an old warehouse in Danville into a nano manufacturing plant. Nanotechnology involves manipulating the structure of materials on a molecular level. There, Hull was tasked with creating environmental technologies.

Nanotechnology became widespread in the early years of the 21st century but what’s the advantage to working with super small stuff?

“As you shrink particles down, it changes its properties,” said Hull. “Let’s say you have a block of gold. There’s a point where you can shrink this gold material down so small that it’ll suddenly look like wine. It’ll be a beautiful ruby red color and it’s transparent. If you look at the rose window at Notre Dame … some of the stained glass … actually they were making nanoparticles. They didn’t even realize it but it was nanoscale particles that were creating that beautiful color.”

Nano sized gold not only looks different, it behaves totally differently.

“We know gold as being very inert,” Hull continued. “It sits on your finger. It doesn’t react or anything like that but on a nano scale, it actually becomes a catalyst so you can actually drive a reaction. It has all kinds of properties that you wouldn’t think of.”

It turns out nanotechnology has many practical applications. Remember how lifeguards used to wear that white zinc oxide on their noses?

“You know why it was white?” Hull asked. “Because it was larger than nano. Nanoscale metals are transparent, so you don’t see a nanoscale titanium dioxide or zinc oxide. It’ll just be clear, because it’s smaller than the wavelengths of light that pass through it. So with nanotechnology, you can still see skin and block the rays of the sun.”

There are a myriad other uses for nanomaterials as well. Hull works a lot with the Department of Defense because apparently, munitions altered at a molecular level make for a more powerful explosion. One of Hull’s first assignments at Luna Technologies was to develop a Nano material that was used to react with and chemically transform pollutants in the environment.

“That’s where you kind of transition from how you and I think about it, to how scientists view the nano world,” said Hull. “It totally changes its behavior and becomes useful in ways that you never imagined. Millions of different types of cancer drugs that have been tried showed promise but ultimately, in some cases, they had to be delivered at levels that were toxic. So, the drug itself would kill us. Nano has been used to improve the retention of those drugs in the body, so that they can be delivered at lower concentrations, where they can be therapeutic but not kill you.”

According to Hull, nanotechnology has great potential to improve our lives but there is also an element of danger in these micro materials. While working at Luna, Hull noticed what seemed like a possible safety hazard.

“They were wearing pollen mask while they were working with nanomaterials and if you look at the size scale, to a nanoscale particle the pores on a pollen mass look like caverns,” Hull explained.

It was then that Hull developed the Nano Safe Framework which is a framework for managing nanotechnology responsibly, especially for small to midsize companies that didn’t have unlimited resources.

“So, you had a company that was commercializing nano technology and then you had a guy inside who is worried about safety,” said Hull. “That was me.”

Eventually Hull decided to start his own company called Nanosafe, which was formed to aid businesses, government agencies and academic institutions to manage emerging nanotechnology health and safety risks. Hull envisions his company as something akin to an Underwriters Lab guarantee that the product has been tested and is safe.

Nanoparticles, in the form of viruses for example, can kill you.

“You can’t see the nanoparticles,” said Hull. “I mean they’re all around you and me so you’re probably breathing in 3,000 particles per cubic centimeter … right now.”

Recently, Nanosafe tested a ventilated enclosure made by a company called Labconco for work with nano materials. It was tested and received the Nano Safe seal of approval.

“It’s two sides of the coin,” said Hull. “On one hand I study applications of nanotechnology for sustainability and on the other hand, I look at the risks of nanotechnology because my argument has always been you can’t look at one without the other.”

In 2007, the same year he founded Nanosafe, Hull returned to Virginia Tech to attain his Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering. After attaining his doctorate in 2011, Hull began working at Tech’s Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science.

“Our institute gives money to other Virginia Tech faculty teams to do cutting edge research in new and exciting areas,” said Hull. “It’s supposed to be high risk, high reward research that other people aren’t ready to fund yet because it’s too far out there. And we try to seed them by giving them a little money to get some preliminary results, so that they can go out and get their grants.”

In 2014, Hull founded the Nanotechnology Entrepreneurship Challenge (NTEC).

“I challenge student teams and give them money to take nanotechnology ideas and solve a global problem with it,” said Hull. “One of the student teams is developing a universal exhale detector for measuring maybe COVID-19 in someone’s exhaled breath. Another team is trying to develop an installation that you can make from recycled plastic. They just develop all kinds of crazy things. Part of my role is to try to help mentor them and see how their academic degree can serve them in an entrepreneurial activity or help them land a career. It’s not your traditional chemistry and biology, physics, it’s all those things that kind of come together and converge in new ways,” said Hull. “So, I’m an interdisciplinary guy.”

Even as he works full time at Virginia Tech, Hull continues to run his Blacksburg based company, Nanosafe.

“It’s been a challenge to try to juggle both and that’s a real understatement.” Hull admitted. “I’m very committed to my day job at Virginia Tech and it’s kind of hard being a part time CEO because the CEO job requires 100% focus. So, I do the best that I can and then still be dad and a decent husband. All of my family is still in this area. We didn’t go far. We didn’t leave.”

Hull continues in his efforts to provide masks to those who are regularly exposed the coronavirus and is currently working with Carilion Hospital to design and produce high quality respirators made from everyday materials.

One thing’s for sure. Hull likes what he does.

“I enjoy the exposure to technology and getting to see really cool things,” said Hull. “It gives me a positive view on how we can address problems because you see the technology that’s out there but you also see the really bright students,” said Hull. “It’s really encouraging.”

Today Matthew Hull lives in Dublin with his wife Sherry and their two children, 16-year-old Evan, who is on the PCHS track team and 14-year-old Olivia, who is big into volleyball.

“I love it here,” said Hull. “I don’t want to bash Blacksburg but I’m really happy here. This house in Blacksburg would cost three times what we paid for it here. I never really wanted to leave. I always enjoyed it here. I want to make my life here.”

Written by: Editor on May 11, 2020.

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