Nano particles in the environment has many sources and are found in the exhaust from cars, factory emissions and from commercial products. Particle diameter is less than 10.000 th of a millimeter (100nm). On Nano2010 presented Vestlandsforsking results from a study of new types of nanoparticles from the biodiesel /fossil diesel blends.

The study includes two categories of molecules from the biodiesel / fossil diesel blends; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and fatty acid methylesters(FAME). Many PAH's are carcinogenic, and FAME has the special chemical property that it can merge with cell membranes in the body, such as in the lung tissue. The mixture of these two molecules may lead to FAME and PAH becomes a "Trojan horse" for cells, whereby PAHs can easily enter and damage the DNA and cause cancer. A picture of the particles is shown in (Fig. 1).

The calculations are made by Otto Andersen and Sergio Manzetti at Vestlandsforsking, together with the University of Uppsala, Department of Computational Biology. The super computer "Anfinsen" performs calculations in a few days that would have taken several months on a standard PC (Fig. 2). The program used is called GROMACS (Groeningen Machine for Molecular Simulations) and is used to predict physical-chemical aspects of such organic solvents and other chemical compounds. The program has also been used to to predict how different cell components such as enzymes work.