Nanotechnology Too BIG to Ignore

Nano: No Small Business! What is Nano?: A nanometer (nm) is 1 mil- lionth of a millimeter (10-9 m). Nano- same nano characteristics is a difficult and technology deal with anything smaller 100 task. Scientists have now come up with nm. An atom is 0.2 nm in size! To have a feel a process what is known as ‘self assem- how small 1nm is, it is pertinent to say that a bly’. when kept together human hair is typically 70,000 nm. A man’s under the ideal conditions will start as- beard grows by a nanometer in the time it sembling together to form a bigger ma- takes him to lift the razor from the bathroom terial (a semiconductor). Self assembly sink table to his face. A short person may bene- of human organs may not be far away! fit using a nanoscale to measure his/her height. We should be able to go to a fabrication How tall is a 5’2” person? About 1.6 million unit and order a better looking nose!! nanometers tall! A kid friendly You Tube video Who knows!!! With nanomaterials, the that describes can be found at next generation computer chips will give by keying in ‘Nanotechnology - What is it?’ us faster, smaller and more efficient computers. We will have low-cost flat Nano is not new: winning Ameri- screen televisions, better insulation can Physicist Richard Feynman first proposed materials, high energy batteries, sturdy the term ‘nano-technology’ in 1959 during his storage tanks (hydrogen storage for talk given at California Institute of Technology energy generation), efficient energy (Caltech) titled “There’s Plenty of Room at the production units, and sensors which will Bottom”. In 1985 the first known nanopar- be used in automobiles, airplanes, and ticle, , was discovered. Nobel Prize within human body. for was awarded to , Harold Kroto, and Richard Smalley for the dis- Nano Worries: However, nanotechnol- covery of fullerenes. Buckyball or Buckminster ogy has a darker side too. Take the cases C60 is the simplest of fullerenes. of nuclear energy, synthetic chemicals, There are lots of complex fullerenes. A bucky- and electronics. When these new tech- ball resembles a soccer ball and is made up of nologies were introduced we were so 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons. Then came excited that we didn’t care to look at the the nanotubes, quantum dots, various darker sides of them. We learnt lessons metal, and non-metallic nanoparticles. from these and we are now better pre- pared. Nanomaterials are found to impact Nano in the market?: Nanotechnology-based aquatic species like fish. They accumu- stronger construction materials are already late in their body and found to affect their available in the market. Nanomaterial-based brain. While doctors may want to kill tennis balls last longer, golf balls fly bet- cancer cells and bacteria with nanopar- ter, and bowling balls are harder. There are ticles and environmental microbiologists sunscreens, ski wax, car wax, and sanitizers are worried that these particles may wipe in the market which uses variety for nanopar- out a whole group of useful bacterial ticles including titanium, zinc, and silver. There present in the environment. are ‘strain resistant’ textiles available in the market and socks that don’t stink! We will see more and more nanotechnology enhanced products in the market in the near future. Future of Nano: New effective and target specific drug delivery is now possible with nanoparticles. Nanoparticles act like delivery vehicles for specific drug to specific human organs. The area of nanomedicine is still at its infancy but holds a lot of promises in detect- For more information on ing, diagnosing, and treating various diseases. this series or to receive Nanotechnology is expected to be the basis a classroom set of for regeneration or re-growth of our body parts newspapers, please call: 701-241-5566 or e-mail: lost due to diseases or accidents. Produc- [email protected] tion of nanomaterials is relatively simple, but putting them together while maintaining the www.theforumNIE.com