Those nanoparticles with small size to large surface area 1— nm have several potential functions. These days, sustainable agriculture is needed. The development of nanochemicals has appeared as promising agents for the plant growth, fertilizers and pesticides. In recent years, the use of nanomaterials has been considered as an alternative solution to control plant pests including insects, fungi and weeds. Several nanomaterials are used as antimicrobial agents in food packing in which several nanoparticles such as silver nanomaterials are in great interest.
In food industries, nanoparticles are leading in forming the food with high quality and good nutritive value. Applications of Nanobiotechnology. Nanotechnology has gained intense attention in recent years due to its wide applications in several areas like medicine, medical drugs, catalysis, energy and materials. Those nanoparticles with small size to large surface area 1— nm have potential medical, industrial and agricultural applications.
Scientists have carried out significant efforts toward the synthesis of nanoparticles by different means, including physical, chemical and biological methods [ 1 ]. These methods have many disadvantages due to the difficulty of scale-up of the process, separation and purification of nanoparticles from the micro-emulsion oil, surfactant, co-surfactant and aqueous phase and consuming large amount of surfactants [ 2 ]. Green methods for synthesizing nanoparticles with plant extracts are advantageous as it is simple, convenient, eco-friendly and require less reaction time.
Nanomaterials prepared by eco-friendly and green methods could increase agriculture potential for improving the fertilization process, plant growth regulators and pesticides [ 3 ]. In addition, they minimize the amount of harmful chemicals that pollutes the environment. Hence, this technology helps in reducing the environmental pollutants [ 4 ], and nanotechnology has recently gained attention due to its wide applications in different fields such as in medicine, environment and agriculture [ 5 ].
Particularly, the large surface area offered by the tiny nanoparticles, which have high surface area, makes them attractive to address challenges not met by physical, chemical pesticides and biological control methods. Nanotechnology in agriculture has gained good momentum in the last decade with an abundance of public funding, but the stage of development is good, even though many methods became under the umbrella of agriculture. This might be attributed to a unique nature of farm production, which functions as an open system whereby energy and matter are exchanged freely.
The scale of demand of input materials is always being large in contrast with industrial nanoproducts with the absence of control over the input of the nanomaterials in contrast with industrial nanoproducts [ 6 ].
Nanotechnology provides new agrochemical agents and new delivery mechanisms to improve crop productivity, and it promises to reduce pesticide applications.
Nanotechnology can increase agricultural production, and its applications include: 1 nanoformulations of agrochemicals for applying pesticides and fertilizers for crop improvement; 2 the application of nanosensors in crop protection for the identification of diseases and residues of agrochemicals; 3 nanodevices for the genetic engineering of plants; 4 plant disease diagnostics; 5 animal health, animal breeding, poultry production; and 6 postharvest management.
Precision farming techniques might be used to further improve the crop yields but not damage soil and water.
In addition, it can reduce nitrogen loss due to leaching and emissions, and soil microorganisms. Nanotechnology applications include nanoparticle-mediated gene or DNA transfer in plants for the development of insect-resistant varieties, food processing and storage and increased product shelf life.
Nanotechnology may increase the development of biomass-to-fuel production. Experts feel that the potential benefits of nanotechnology for agriculture, food, fisheries and aquaculture need to be balanced against concerns for the soil, water and environment and the occupational health of workers [ 7 ].
Nanotechnology uses are currently being researched, tested and in some cases already applied in food technology [ 8 ]. Nanomaterials are considered with specific chemical, physical and mechanical properties. In recent years, agricultural waste products have attracted attention as source of renewable raw materials to be processed in substitution of several different applications as well as a raw material for nonmaterial production.
Insecticide resistance is one of the best examples of evolution occurring on an ecological time scale. The study of insecticide resistance is needed, both because it leads to understanding mechanisms operating in real time and because of its economic importance. It has become in insects an increasing problem for agriculture and public health. Agricultural practices could include wide range of selective regimes [ 1 ].
Nanotechnology applications are being tested in food technology and agriculture. The applications of nanomaterials in agriculture aim to reduce spraying of plant protection products and to increase plant yields. Nanotechnology means like nanocapsules, and nanoparticles are examples of uses for the detection and treatment of diseases.
Nanotechnology derived devices are also explored in the field of plant breeding and genetic transformation. The potential of nanotechnology in agriculture is large, but a few issues are still to be addressed as the risk assessment. In this respect, some nanoparticle attractants are derived from biopolymers such as proteins and carbohydrates with low effect on human health and the environment.
Nanotechnology has many uses in all stages of production, processing, storing, packaging and transport of agricultural products. Nanotechnology will revolutionize agriculture and food industry such as in case of farming techniques, enhancing the ability of plants to absorb nutrients, disease detection and control pests. It may be understood to present a good approach of ecosystem for long run. Practices that can cause long-term damage to soil include excessive tilling of the soil which leads to erosion and irrigation without needed drainage.
Photodynamic cancer therapy is based on the destruction of the cancer cells by laser generated atomic oxygen, which is cytotoxic. A greater quantity of a special dye that is used to generate the atomic oxygen is taken in by the cancer cells when compared with a healthy tissue.
Hence, only the cancer cells are destroyed then exposed to a laser radiation. Unfortunately, the remaining dye molecules migrate to the skin and the eyes and make the patient very sensitive to the daylight exposure. This effect can last for up to six weeks.
To avoid this side effect, the hydrophobic version of the dye molecule was enclosed inside a porous nanoparticle [ 28 ]. The dye stayed trapped inside the Ormosil nanoparticle and did not spread to the other parts of the body.
At the same time, its oxygen generating ability has not been affected and the pore size of about 1 nm freely allowed for the oxygen to diffuse out. The ever increasing research in proteomics and genomic generates escalating number of sequence data and requires development of high throughput screening technologies.
Realistically, various array technologies that are currently used in parallel analysis are likely to reach saturation when a number of array elements exceed several millions. A three-dimensional approach, based on optical "bar coding" of polymer particles in solution, is limited only by the number of unique tags one can reliably produce and detect.
Single quantum dots of compound semiconductors were successfully used as a replacement of organic dyes in various bio-tagging applications [ 7 ]. This idea has been taken one step further by combining differently sized and hence having different fluorescent colours quantum dots, and combining them in polymeric microbeads [ 29 ]. A precise control of quantum dot ratios has been achieved.
The selection of nanoparticles used in those experiments had 6 different colours as well as 10 intensities. It is enough to encode over 1 million combinations. The uniformity and reproducibility of beads was high letting for the bead identification accuracies of Functionalised magnetic nanoparticles have found many applications including cell separation and probing; these and other applications are discussed in a recent review [ 8 ].
Most of the magnetic particles studied so far are spherical, which somewhat limits the possibilities to make these nanoparticles multifunctional.
Alternative cylindrically shaped nanoparticles can be created by employing metal electrodeposition into nanoporous alumina template [ 30 ]. By sequentially depositing various thicknesses of different metals, the structure and the magnetic properties of individual cylinders can be tuned widely.
As surface chemistry for functionalisation of metal surfaces is well developed, different ligands can be selectively attached to different segments. For example, porphyrins with thiol or carboxyl linkers were simultaneously attached to the gold or nickel segments respectively. Thus, it is possible to produce magnetic nanowires with spatially segregated fluorescent parts.
In addition, because of the large aspect ratios, the residual magnetisation of these nanowires can be high. Hence, weaker magnetic field can be used to drive them. It has been shown that a self-assembly of magnetic nanowires in suspension can be controlled by weak external magnetic fields.
This would potentially allow controlling cell assembly in different shapes and forms. Moreover, an external magnetic field can be combined with a lithographically defined magnetic pattern "magnetic trapping".
Proteins are the important part of the cell's language, machinery and structure, and understanding their functionalities is extremely important for further progress in human well being.
Gold nanoparticles are widely used in immunohistochemistry to identify protein-protein interaction. However, the multiple simultaneous detection capabilities of this technique are fairly limited. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering spectroscopy is a well-established technique for detection and identification of single dye molecules. By combining both methods in a single nanoparticle probe one can drastically improve the multiplexing capabilities of protein probes.
The group of Prof. Mirkin has designed a sophisticated multifunctional probe that is built around a 13 nm gold nanoparticle. The nanoparticles are coated with hydrophilic oligonucleotides containing a Raman dye at one end and terminally capped with a small molecule recognition element e. Moreover, this molecule is catalytically active and will be coated with silver in the solution of Ag I and hydroquinone. After the probe is attached to a small molecule or an antigen it is designed to detect, the substrate is exposed to silver and hydroquinone solution.
A silver-plating is happening close to the Raman dye, which allows for dye signature detection with a standard Raman microscope. Apart from being able to recognise small molecules this probe can be modified to contain antibodies on the surface to recognise proteins. When tested in the protein array format against both small molecules and proteins, the probe has shown no cross-reactivity.
Some of the companies that are involved in the development and commercialisation of nanomaterials in biological and medical applications are listed below see Table 1. The majority of the companies are small recent spinouts of various research institutions. Although not exhausting, this is a representative selection reflecting current industrial trends.
Most of the companies are developing pharmaceutical applications, mainly for drug delivery. Several companies exploit quantum size effects in semiconductor nanocrystals for tagging biomolecules, or use bio-conjugated gold nanoparticles for labelling various cellular parts. A number of companies are applying nano-ceramic materials to tissue engineering and orthopaedics.
In the United States alone, for example, more than 18 billion dollars were invested between and through the NNI National Nanotechnology Initiative to turn this sector into a driver of economic growth and competitiveness. Nanotechnology, up close. The different types of nanotechnology are classified according to how they proceed top-down or bottom-up and the medium in which they work dry or wet :.
Mechanisms and structures are miniaturised at the nanometric scale — from one to nanometres in size —. It is the most frequent to date, especially in electronics. You start with a nanometric structure — a molecule, for example — and through a mounting or self-assembly process you create a larger mechanism than the one you started with.
It is used to manufacture structures in coal, silicon, inorganic materials, metals and semiconductors that do not work with humidity. It is based on biological systems present in an aqueous environment — including genetic material, membranes, enzymes and other cellular components —. Nanotechnology and nanomaterials can be applied in all kinds of industrial sectors. They are usually found in these areas:.
Carbon nanotubes are close to replacing silicon as a material for making smaller, faster and more efficient microchips and devices, as well as lighter, more conductive and stronger quantum nanowires. Graphene's properties make it an ideal candidate for the development of flexible touchscreens. A new semiconductor developed by Kyoto University makes it possible to manufacture solar panels that double the amount of sunlight converted into electricity. At the turn of the century, a typical transistor was to nanometers in size.
In , Intel created a 14 nanometer transistor, then IBM created the first seven nanometer transistor in , and then Lawrence Berkeley National Lab demonstrated a one nanometer transistor in ! Ultra-high definition displays and televisions are now being sold that use quantum dots to produce more vibrant colors while being more energy efficient. Image courtesy of IBM. Flexible, bendable, foldable, rollable, and stretchable electronics are reaching into various sectors and are being integrated into a variety of products, including wearables, medical applications, aerospace applications, and the Internet of Things.
Flexible electronics have been developed using, for example, semiconductor nanomembranes for applications in smartphone and e-reader displays. Making flat, flexible, lightweight, non-brittle, highly efficient electronics opens the door to countless smart products. Nanoparticle copper suspensions have been developed as a safer, cheaper, and more reliable alternative to lead-based solder and other hazardous materials commonly used to fuse electronics in the assembly process.
Medical and Healthcare Applications Nanotechnology is already broadening the medical tools, knowledge, and therapies currently available to clinicians. Nanomedicine, the application of nanotechnology in medicine, draws on the natural scale of biological phenomena to produce precise solutions for disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.
Below are some examples of recent advances in this area:. Many scientists are looking into ways to develop clean, affordable, and renewable energy sources, along with means to reduce energy consumption and lessen toxicity burdens on the environment:.
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