NanotechnologyPresentation by: Elena Syrovatkina and Andrew Tsang

SOCS-301 Meanings of New Technologies

Overview.

In “A Tiny Primer on Nano-scale Technologies and the Little Bang Theory” article we found a wide array of nanotechnology facts and scientific explorations.We decided to start with the simple question “What is nanotechnology?” and conduct our own research supported with some links and readings from this week. This research helped us understand the value of nanotechnology and the issues that arise from using nanotechnologies in everyday life. We explored the history of nanotechnologies, their origins, uses, meanings and risks. These technologies have a positive impact on medicine, geoengineering, and biology, but at the same time they are associated with many risks due to the size and properties of nanoparticles that have not been fully explored yet.

What is nanotechnology?

Nano-scale technology is a suite of techniques used to manipulate matter at the scale of atoms and molecules. “Nano” is a measurement – not an object. Unlike “biotechnology,” where you know that bios (life) is being manipulated, “nanotechnology” speaks solely to scale. A “nanometre” (nm) equals one billionth of a metre. One human hair is about 80,000 nanometres thick. It takes ten atoms of hydrogen side-by-side to equal one nanometre. A DNA molecule is about 2.5 nm wide. A red blood cell is vast in comparison: about 5,000 nm in diameter. Everything on the nano-scale is invisible to the unaided eye and even to all but the most powerful microscopes.

How it started.

The ideas and concepts behind nanoscience and nanotechnology started with 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 (CalTech) on December 29, 1959, long before the term nanotechnology was used. In his talk, Feynman described a process in which scientists would be able to manipulate and control individual atoms and molecules. Over a decade later, in his explorations of ultraprecision machining, Professor Norio Taniguchi coined the term nanotechnology. It wasn’t until 1981, with the development of the scanning tunneling microscope that could “see” individual atoms, that modern nanotechnology began.

Physicist Richard Feynman, the father of nanotechnology.

Nanometre.Just how small is “nano?” In the International System of Units, the prefix “nano” means one-billionth, or 10-9; therefore one nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. It’s difficult to imagine just how small that is, so here are some examples:

• A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick• A strand of human DNA is 2.5 nanometers in diameter• There are 25,400,000 nanometers in one inch• A human hair is approximately 80,000 – 100,000

nanometers wide• A single gold atom is about a third of a nanometer in

diameter• On a comparative scale, if the diameter of a marble was

one nanometer, then diameter of the Earth would be about one meter

• One nanometer is about as long as your fingernail grows in one second

The illustration on the right has three visual examples of the size and the scale of nanotechnology, showing just how small things at the nanoscale actually are. (5)

Nanometre.

This interactive experience shows you how small a nanometre isPlease click this link http://htwins.net/scale2/

Nanoparticles.A nanoparticle is a small object that behaves as a whole unit in terms of its transport and properties. In terms of diameter, fine particles cover a range between 100 and 2500 nanometers, while ultrafine particles are sized between 1 and 100 nanometers. Nanoparticles may or may not exhibit size-related properties that are seen in fine particles. Despite being the size of the ultrafine particles individual molecules are usually not referred to as nanoparticles. Some of the uses of nanoparticles in biology and medicine include:

• Creating fluorescent biological labels for important biological markers and molecules in research and diagnosis of diseases

• Drug delivery systems• Gene delivery systems in gene therapy• For biological detection of disease causing organisms and diagnosis• Detection of proteins• Isolation and purification of biological molecules and cells

in research• Probing of DNA structure• Genetic and tissue engineering• Destruction of tumours with drugs or heat• In MRI studies• In pharmacokinetic studies. (3)

Light nanoparticles

Benefits and uses of nanotechnology.

Cancer treatment, has known to be effective in treating cancer cells and tumors, though chemotherapy is effective they also cause major harm to healthy cells. This is because radiation must first pass through healthy tissues before reaching the cancerous target. When radiation is passed through the body it reacts with water and creates radicals damaging healthy and cancerous cells. This process damages the body and causes unwanted side effects. Nanomedicine aims to turn this treatment into a more precise tool, by directly aiming at cancer cells. This is done by activating only the nanomedicine, to absorb more X-ray than water. This focuses the damages on the tumor DNA and cellular structure rather than the surrounding healthy tissue. (2)

Nanomedicine

Benefits and uses of nanotechnology.NanoengineeringSolar panels are nothing new in the 21 century, but with nanotechnology available, solar is more accessible than ever. With nanotechnology, looking at the scale of nanometers, they are able to change the property and combine new molecules. This changes as we do not need silicon to produce solar panels, as they are expensive, brittle and heavy. Silicon is difficult to acquire because of the process involved in getting silicon to be purified. With nanotechnology, scientist and researchers are able to combine plastic to solar cells. This makes solar technology cheaper, flexible, more efficiency and printable. This allows solar cells to become ink, as this application can be applied to anything from jackets to roof panels.

http://web.mit.edu/nanoengineering/research/solar.shtmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yxktvSF4_4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndJlgTkm0oQ

Benefits and uses of nanotechnology.NanobiotechnologyNanobiotechnologists aim to harness nature’s self-replicating “manufacturing platform” for industrial uses. Today, researchers are building biological machines – or hybrid machines employing both biological and non-biological matter – from the bottom-up. The implications are breathtaking: not just new species and new biodiversity – but life forms that are human-directed and self-replicating.

Risks associatedwith nanotechnology.Nanomaterials and safety rulesResearchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology found that nanoparticles of aluminum oxide stunt the growth of roots on several crops – including soybeans and corn, mainstays of U.S. agriculture. Japanese researchers found that a kind of nanosphere that some want to use to deliver drugs or vaccines into the body is a potent stimulator of immune-reaction genes, perhaps explaining fatal inflammatory responses seen in animals exposed to nanomaterials. And a California team working with laboratory-grown cells showed that carbon nanotubes specifically activate “cell suicide genes.” “Cell growth was retarded, and there was a doubling of cell deaths,” said study leader Fanqing Frank Chen of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Chen said factory exposures should be “a big concern,” and added that many nanospheres are very stable and not likely to break down in the environment.Governments, industry and scientific institutions have allowed nanotech products to come to market in the absence of public debate and regulatory oversight. An estimated 475 products containing invisible, unregulated and unlabeled nano-scale particles are already commercially available (including food products, pesticides, cosmetics, sunscreens and more) – and thousands more are in the pipeline.

Risks associatedwith nanotechnology.Nanomaterials and safety rulesFactory workers, engineers and scientists working on cutting-edge products could be exposed to higher levels of nanosized particles or carbon nanotubes than any of the consumers who end up buying them. And, unlike traditional chemical engineering industries where workers’ exposure to chemicals is regulated, it is still not clear whether protective masks, filters, and ventilation systems are sufficient to prevent harmful exposure to the latest nanosized substances. There are a host of regulations in place to safeguard workers from the effects of harmful chemicals, but all too often nanoparticles slip through. The recent introduction of the European Union’s Reach (registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals) legislation, for example, was set up to govern the production, use and import of chemicals in the continent, yet it fails to recognise the unique set of risks posed by nanoparticles. “Reach doesn’t specifically discriminate between bulk form and nano form,” says Mark Morrison, CEO of Institute of Nanotechnology, in Glasgow. Yet with nanoparticles, often the whole point of using them is to exploit the way that a material’s properties or reactivity can change when its size is reduced. As such, a chemical that is innocuous in bulk form can be potentially harmful at the near-atomic scale. (1)

Future implicationsof nanotechnology.Nanorobotics

Nanobots will be able to be inside our blood streams, effectively identifying problematic parts of the body and will be able to repair them. This device could be used to clear cholesterol from arteries, repair DNA, and assets internal damages. The possibility of this device is endless and may soon be implemented in hospital settings.

• macroscale robots or microrobots which can move with nanoscale precision

• This maybe the answer to treating a wide range of disease and conditions.

• DNA repair• http://nanogloss.com/nanobots/what-are-the-

capabilities-of-nanobots/#more-149

Conclusion.

Nanotechnology is an important and rapidly growing field of scientific and practical innovation that will fundamentally transform our understanding of how materials and devices interact with human and natural environments. These transformations may offer great benefits to society such as improvements in medical diagnostics and treatments, water and air pollution monitoring, solar photovoltaic energy, water and waste treatment systems, and many others.The transformations may also pose serious risks. The social, economic, political and ethical implications are significant. Because nanotechnology raises issues that are more complex and far-reaching than many other innovations, the current approach to managing the introduction of new technologies is not up to the challenges posed by nanotechnology. Decision makers worldwide need to work towards a system of risk governance for nanotechnology that is global, coordinated, and involves the participation of all stakeholders, including civil society. (6)

Works Cited.Biotargeted nanomedicines for cancer: six tenets before you begin

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3643633/ (2)

Eco Tech: Plastic solar power & more

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yxktvSF4_4 (9)

Is nanotechnology safe in the workplace? - The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/nanotechnology-world/is-nanotechnology-safe-in-the-workplace (1)

Nanoparticles - What are Nanoparticles? News Medical

http://www.news-medical.net/health/Nanoparticles-What-are-Nanoparticles.aspx (3)

Nanotechnology could spark compensation payouts

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2008/s2544154.htm (4)

Nanotechnology Risk Governance Recommendations for a global, coordinated approach to the

governance of potential risks http://www.irgc.org/IMG/pdf/PB_nanoFINAL2_2_.pdf (6)

Nanotechnology Today - Fuel Cells, Buckyballs and Carbon Nanotubes - Bytesize Science

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndJlgTkm0oQ (10)

Size of the Nanoscale. National Nanotechnology Initiative

http://www.nano.gov/nanotech-101/what/nano-size (5)

Solar Energy Conversion

http://web.mit.edu/nanoengineering/research/solar.shtml (8)

The Scale of The Universe

http://htwins.net/scale2/ (7)

What Are the Capabilities of Nanobots?

http://nanogloss.com/nanobots/what-are-the-capabilities-of-nanobots/#more-149 (11)