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Nanotechnology That Will Actually Make Your Life Better (#ipumusings)(#biotechnology)(#nanotechnology)

Nanotechnology That Will Actually Make Your Life Better. 


Nanotechnology is futuristic. Here the article by Sanjana talks about Nanotechnology and how it is shaping the future. 

Nanotechnology That Will Actually Make Your Life Better (#ipumusings)(#biotechnology)(#nanotechnology)

What is nanotechnology?

The world is shrinking and relatively unexplored beyond what a human eye can perceive.  Nanotechnology is any technology on the nanoscale with applications in the real world. It is the manipulation and manufacture of matter on the atomic, molecular and supramolecular level. The nanoscale is a measure in nanometers which is the billionth part of a meter where Nanos, the Greek word means “dwarf”. [1]


The ideas that seeded nanotechnology were first mentioned in a talk entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” by physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting at the ‘California Institute of Technology on December 29, 1959’. Here he described the possibility in which scientists would be able to manipulate and control individual atoms and molecules. Over a decade later, Professor Norio Taniguchi in his studies of ultra-precision machining, coined the term nanotechnology. Inspired by Feynman’s concepts, K. Eric Drexler used the term “nanotechnology” in his book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology in 1986. This emergence of nanotechnology as a field occurred with the development of the scanning tunnelling microscope that could "see" individual atoms and hence modern nanotechnology began. [4]

Nanotechnology That Will Actually Make Your Life Better (#ipumusings)(#biotechnology)(#nanotechnology)
Scanning electron microscopy of polygonized nanotube.
Image Credit: Svetlana Dimovski, Drexel University

When we move into the Nanoscale we can work with new domains of physics that don’t apply at any other scale. Everything in this world is made up of atoms, and the characteristic properties of every matter depend on the arrangements of these atoms. The properties of any matter change when they are smaller, phenomenon based on quantum mechanical effect.  These so-called quantum effects dictate the behaviour and properties of particles, so we know that the properties of materials are size-dependent when working at the nanoscale. Scientists have to adjust and fine-tune material and its properties by rearranging the atoms of an object and they have actually been able to do that for quite some time now, it’s possible to change properties like melting point, fluorescence, electrical conductivity, magnetic permeability and chemical reactivity by nanotechnology. Some of the nanoparticle manufacturer companies are Mittal Enterprises and Nano Orbital Private limited in Hyderabad, Nano Span Private Limited, Nanocs making Gold and Silver nanoparticles, TurboBeads, Nanoco Technologies etc.

Applications of Nanotechnology

There are many things that wouldn’t have been there if we have not modified and manipulated them using nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is helping to considerably improve, even revolutionize to manufacture lighter, stronger, and programmable materials that require less energy to produce than conventional materials, and produce less waste than with conventional manufacturing, and that promise greater fuel efficiency in land transportation, ships, aircraft, and space vehicles.

Below are some examples of rapidly growing list of benefits and applications of nanotechnology. [2]

Nanotechnology That Will Actually Make Your Life Better (#ipumusings)(#biotechnology)(#nanotechnology)
Applications of Nanotechnology
1.   Nano Electronics 

    • Clear thin nanoscale films on glasses and other services to make them, scratch-resistant, anti-reflective, self-cleaning or electrically conductive.

Thin Nano films [6]

    • We are shrinking the size of computer chips helping to enlarge memory capacity, hence making smartphones even smarter with features’ like nanogenerators to charge our phones while we walk.

    • Nanotechnology has been pivotal in advanced computing and electronics leading to faster, smaller, smarter and more potable systems and products, for transistors that enable all modern computing reduced drastically from roughly 250 nanometers in 2000 to just a single nanometer in 2016, this enables the memory of the entire computer to be stored in a single chip.

Nanotechnology That Will Actually Make Your Life Better (#ipumusings)(#biotechnology)(#nanotechnology)
Nano scale transistors [7]

    • Faster system has also been made possible using nanoscale magnetic tunnel junctions that quickly and effectively save data during a system shutdown, it’s expected that using magnetic RAM or random-access memory with these nanoscale junctions, computers will soon be able to boot almost instantly. 

    • Flexible, bendable, foldable and stretchable electronics have been developed using semiconductor nanomembranes, their monocrystalline structures with a thickness of less than a few hundred nanometer is useful in applications of smartphones and wearable technology like smartwatches. [3]


3. Nano Medicines 

    • Commercial applications have adapted gold nanoparticles as probes for the possible detection of targeted sequences of nucleic acids, and gold nanoparticles are also being clinically investigated as potential treatments for cancer and other diseases.

  • Nanotechnology researchers are working on a number of different therapeutics where a nanoparticle can compress or otherwise help to deliver medication directly to cancer cells and minimize the risk of damage to active tissue. This possesses the potential to improve the way doctors treat cancer and drastically reduce the toxic effects of chemotherapy. [2]


4. Nano Technology in Ware Fare

    • Small nanorobots used in specific delivery of the drug in the body.
    • Quantum dots for sensors
    • Carbon nanotubes and nanowires for use in nanoelectronics 

Nanotechnology That Will Actually Make Your Life Better (#ipumusings)(#biotechnology)(#nanotechnology)
Double-Walled Carbon Nanotube [8] 
5. Nano Energies

    • Nanofabrication, which is a process used to develop and design a new device on the nanoscale.

  • Nanotechnology is improving the potency of fuel production from raw petroleum materials through higher chemical action. It is also allowing reduced fuel consumption in vehicles and power plants through higher-efficiency combustion and reduced friction.

  • Researchers are developing wires containing carbon nanotubes that will allow much lower resistance than the high-tension wires currently used in the electric grid, hence reducing transmission power loss.

   • Nanotechnology can be incorporated into solar panels to convert sunlight to electricity more efficiently, promising inexpensive solar power in the possible future. Nanostructured solar cells could be more affordable to manufacture and easier to install since they can use print-like manufacturing processes and can be made in flexible rolls rather than discrete panels. More recent research suggests that future solar converters might even be “paintable.”



REFERENCES 

[1] Nanotechnology, S.Tom Picraux, April 09, 2020, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. , https://www.britannica.com/technology/nanotechnology
[2] Nanotechnology Applications: Types, Advantages & Disadvantages. ElProCus - Electronic Projects for Engineering Students. 2020
[3] A Review on Applications of Nanotechnology, Arunkumar A.N. S. Mudliar, July-2013 2018, International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 4, Issue 7
[4] History of Nanotechnology, TryNano.org
[5] Nanotechnology: A Review, Mandeep Kaur, Lecturer-ECE; Gurjeevan Singh, DIC-ECE; Kamal Khanna, Lecturer-ME; Navneet Kaur, Asst Prof-EE, Jan 11, 2016, Research Gate
[6] Nano thin film deposition -how does it work?, AzoNano
[7] New nanowire transistors, Phys.org
[8] Double-walled carbon nanotube overview, nanografi


About the Author


Sanjana Singh, University of Chemical Technology (GGSIPU). She is interested in exploring nanotechnology and developing new medicines and pharmaceuticals.