Unit IV nanotechnology

Society is developing fast now changing our life every single second. Scientists come up with more and more ambitious projects, employ more and more advanced technologies.

Nanotechnology is believed to be one of the most effective tools that will enable sciences to accelerate dramatically.

TEXT A

Pre-Reading Task

Brainstorm for the words or phrases you associate with nanotechnology.

Can you define what nanotechnology mean? Write down your explanation of what nanotechnology is and compare your vision with your partner’s.

Do you think nanotechnology can be applied in real life? What areas can it be applied in? What applications of nanotechnology can you name?

What is nanotechnology?

Read the text and see if your answers were correct.

Nanotechnology is one of the buzzwords today. One can encounter it in materials related to a wide range of topics. Can it really affect our life so much? Let’s look into the issue.

So what exactly is nanotechnology?

Nanotechnology is science, engineering and technology conducted at the nanoscale, which is about 1 to 100 nanometers.

N anoscience and nanotechnology deal with the design, characterization and application of extremely small things and can be used across all the other science fields such as chemistry, biology, physics, materials science and engineering as well as humanities.

Nanotechnology is not just a new field of science and engineering but a new way of looking at things and studying them.

An American physicist Richard Feynman is considered the father of nanotechnology. In 1959 he described a process in which scientists would be able to manipulate and control individual atoms and molecules. It was not until 1981, with the development of the scanning tunneling microscope that could “see” individual atoms, that modern nanotechnology began.

It is hard to imagine just how small nanotechnology is. One nanometer is a billion of a meter, or 10^-9of a meter. Here are a few illustrative examples:

• There are 25.4000000 nanometers in an inch.

• A sheet of newspaper is about 100000 nanometers thick.

Nanoscience and nanotechnology involve the ability to see and control individual atoms and molecules.

N anotechnology has been shown to be one of the primary reasons that so many things in life are being improved on and enhanced. It is also revolutionizing the way in which things are manufactured, processed and much more. Today’s scientists and engineers are finding a wide variety of ways to deliberately make materials at the nanoscale to take advantage of their enhanced properties. Such as higher strength, lighter weight, increased control of light spectrum, a greater chemical reactivity than their larger-scale counterparts.

In the future nanotechnology will let us achieve the ultimate in precision: place almost every atom in exactly the right location; make molecularly intricate structures as easy and inexpensively as simple materials; reduce the manufacturing costs.

Current applications of nanotechnology involve production and use of nanoparticles as well as new nanostructured materials including metals, oxides and other inorganic nanotubes and fullerenes and their use in technological processes; the making and using of novel materials for electronics and active surfaces (for example, self-cleaning windows0, to name a few.

The scientific opportunities for Chemistry to make important contributions to nanoscience are great. In particular, one should mention 1) syntheses of nanostructures; 2) invention and development of materials whose properties depend on nanoscale structure; 3) understanding the molecular mechanisms of functional nanostructures in biology (DNA, the cell); 4) tools and analytical methods. Developing new nanostructures requires knowing what they are. Physical and Analytical Chemistry will help to build the tools that define these structures.

Presently there is a lot of focus world wide on chemical nanotechnology and it is bringing the chemists closer in other disciplines including physics and biochemistry, as well as materials scientists, engineers and industrialists.

Modern life and specifically the industry depend upon various man-made processes and products. Nanotechnology affects all these processes not only in terms of its potential in bringing out new products or substituting certain products but actually in much more fundamental ways. It is therefore important to comprehend the social, educational, environmental benefits of chemical nanotechnology. At the same time it is also imperative to know its implications in the health, safety and environmental areas.