Top 10 Uses of NanoTechnology in Food

Nanoparticles may be able to detect bacteria, extend food shelf life, add health benefits, or improve flavor, reports Discovery.

While nanotechnology does not involve any genetic manipulation, many companies are keeping secret about their work their doing. While this can keep competitors off their trail, it can also make it difficult for regulatory agencies to manage risks and create laws for these emerging technologies.

Nonetheless, nanotechnology offers some exciting potential benefits for the quality and safety of our foods.

1. CONTAMINATION SENSOR: Flash a light to reveal the presence of E. coli bacteria.

2. ANTIMICROBIAL PACKAGING: Edible food films made with cinnamon or oregano oil, or nano particles of zinc, calcium other materials that kill bacteria.

3. IMPROVED FOOD STORAGE: Nano-enhanced barrier keeps oxygen-sensitive foods fresher.

4. ENHANCED NUTRIENT DELIVERY
Nano-encapsulating improves solubility of vitamins, antioxidants, healthy omega oils and other ‘nutraceuticals’.

5. GREEN PACKAGING: Nano-fibers made from lobster shells or organic corn are both antimicrobial and biodegradable.

6. PESTICIDE REDUCTION: A cloth saturated with nano fibers slowly releases pesticides, eliminating need for additional spraying and reducing chemical leakage into the water supply.

7. TRACKING, TRACING; BRAND PROTECTION: Nanobarcodes can be created to tag individual products and trace outbreaks.

8. TEXTURE: Food spreadability and stability improve with nano-sized crystals and lipids for better low-fat foods.

9. FLAVOR: Trick the tongue with bitter blockers or sweet and salty enhancers.

10. BACTERIA IDENTIFICATION AND ELIMINATION: Nano carbohydrate particles bind with bacteria so they can be detected and eliminated.

Nanotechnology – How it can be a Boon for curing critical ailments

Gone are the days when the term ‘Nanotechnology’ could only be seen if someone went through the pages of some sci-fi novel. This term has proved to be a boon to the human civilization with lots of offerings, the most significant one being in the field of medical science. It has proved to be very helpful in curing critical Medical Ailments and has shown prospects of further growth in the near future which may see a rise of around $60 billion worth of demand for nano-medicines within 1-2 years.

What exactly is Nanotechnology?

Now you may be wondering what this entire buzz about nanotechnology is and what exactly it is. Basically nanotechnology can be described as a completely new field and dimension in applied science which enables to develop nano bots and medicines at the microscopic level. In the medicinal field, this nanotechnology is being used to store critical information in nanometer sized chips which ultimately helps in detecting several critical diseases. You can have your disease cured even without the use of surgery, something which one couldn’t think about in the recent past.

How can nanotechnology be helpful in curing diseases?

It is worth noting that most of the diseases we come across our lifetime, are mere external manifestations of some disturbances in the molecular or the cellular level. Now, if the roots of the disease are cured and taken off from the cellular level itself, we won’t need to have complicated surgeries at the macro level. This utility of nanotechnology steers it to the forefront in curing several disease starting from any kind of eye ailments to even cancer. One can make use of the polymerized contact lenses developed by Nano engineers in Singapore, which helps in curing glaucoma by releasing small amounts of medicine. The alma mater of the fact is that, due to miniscule size of the nano bots or medicines, they can provide efficient Drug Delivery systems to the affected cells.

Nanotechnology for Cancer –The deadly disease:

It is well said that when MRI, PET or CT fails to detect the metastatic dormant cancer cells, Nanotechnology comes to use. Right from detecting the sources of this disease to finding an effective solution to cure it, nanotechnology does it all. Various researches being carried out throughout the world reveal that nanotechnology can be the ultimate answer to this disease. By detecting the vibration patterns of some high frequency ultrasounds, doctors can now differentiate cancer cells from normal cells. Unlike chemotherapy which kills both the normal as well as the cancer cells, nanotechnology researchers are currently in the process of making a device to kill only the cancer cells.

The Final Verdict:

If someone is still waiting for my final verdict on this huge arena of applies science, then the only thing I may suggest to you is to go and have a look at the various researches being carried out at the University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge University and other independent research firms and go through the results. The pace with which this field of applied and translational science is moving, it will surely eradicate some of the very critical ailments in the coming few years.

Nano News & Research

Researchers are working furiously to field defense nano technology for military application. Battle science laboritories are in hyperdrive to produce nanoscopic assemblers or nanogears to manipulate atomic matter and serve as replicators with endless production possibilities.

Nanobots and nano technology can be used to create innovative non woven textiles teeming with military potential. They offer promise as light weight ballistic protection, wound sealing properties, vitals tracking, and environmental adaptation to heating, cooling, and porous to non-porous membranes that can react to weather.

History

In the early 20th century, Henry Ford built a car manufacturing plant on a 2,000-acre tract of land along the Rouge River in Michigan . Built to mass-produce automobiles more efficiently, the Rouge housed the equipment for developing each phase of a car, including blast furnaces , a steel mill and a glass plant. More than 90 miles of railroad track and conveyor belts kept Ford's car assembly line running. The Rouge model was lauded as the most efficient method of production at a time when bigger meant better.

The size of Ford's assembly plant would look strange to those born and raised in the 21st century. In the next 50 years, machines will get increasingly smaller -- so small that thousands of these tiny machines would fit into the period at the end of this sentence. Within a few decades, we will use these nanomachines to manufacture consumer goods at the molecular level, piecing together one atom or molecule at a time to make baseballs, telephones and cars. This is the goal of nanotechnology . As televisions , airplanes and computers revolutionized the world in the last century, scientists claim that tactical nanotechnology will have an even more profound effect on the next century.

Nanotechnology is an umbrella term that covers many areas of research dealing with objects that are measured in nanometers . A nanometer (nm) is a billionth of a meter, or a millionth of a millimeter.

Building with Atoms
Atoms are the building blocks for all matter in our universe. You and everything around you are made of atoms. Nature has perfected the science of manufacturing matter molecularly. For instance, our bodies are assembled in a specific manner from millions of living cells.
Cells are nature's nanomachines. Humans still have a lot to learn about the idea of constructing materials on such a small scale. Consumer goods that we buy are made by pushing piles of atoms together in a bulky, imprecise manner. Imagine if we could manipulate each individual atom of an object. That's the basic idea of nanotechnology, and many scientists believe that we are only a few decades away from achieving it.
Nanogears no more than a nanometer wide could be used to construct a matter compiler, which could be fed raw material to arrange atoms and build a macro-scale structure.

Nanotechnology is a hybrid science combining engineering and chemistry. Atoms and molecules stick together because they have complementary shapes that lock together, or charges that attract. Just like with magnets, a positively charged atom will stick to a negatively charged atom. As millions of these atoms are pieced together by nanomachines, a specific product will begin to take shape. The goal of nanotechnology is to manipulate atoms individually and place them in a pattern to produce a desired structure. There are three steps to achieving nanotechnology-produced goods:

Scientists must be able to manipulate individual atoms . This means that they will have to develop a technique to grab single atoms and move them to desired positions. In 1990, IBM researchers showed that it is possible to manipulate single atoms. They positioned 35 xenon atoms on the surface of a nickel crystal, using an atomic force microscopy instrument. These positioned atoms spelled out the letters "IBM."

The next step will be to develop nanoscopic machines, called assemblers, that can be programmed to manipulate atoms and molecules at will. It would take thousands of years for a single assembler to produce any kind of material one atom at a time. Trillions of assemblers will be needed to develop products in a viable time frame.

In order to create enough assemblers to build

consumer goods, some nanomachines, called replicators , will be programmed to build more assemblers.

Trillions of assemblers and replicators will fill an area smaller than a cubic millimeter, and will still be too small for us to see with the naked eye . Assemblers and replicators will work together like hands to automatically construct products, and will eventually replace all traditional labor methods. This will vastly decrease manufacturing

costs, thereby making consumer goods plentiful, cheaper and stronger. In the next section, you'll find out how nanotechnology will impact every facet of society, from medicine to computers.

A New Industrial Revolution

In January 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton requested a $227-million increase in the government's investment in nanotechnology research anddevelopment, which included a major initiative called the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). This initiative nearly doubled America 's 2000 budget investment in nanotechnology, bringing the total invested in nanotechnology to $497 million for the 2001 national budget. In a written statement, White House officials said that "nanotechnology is the new frontier and its potential impact is compelling." About 70 percent of the new nanotechnology funding will go to university research efforts, which will help meet the demand for workers with nanoscale science and engineering skills. The initiative will also fund the projects of several governmental agencies, including the National Science Foundation , the Department of Defense , the Department of Energy , the National Institutes of Health , NASA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Much of the research will take more than 20 years to complete, but the process itself could touch off a new industrial revolution. Nanotechnology is likely to change the way almost everything, including medicine, computers and cars, are designed and constructed. Nanotechnology is anywhere from five to 15 years in the future, and we won't see dramatic changes in our world right away. But let's take a look at the potential effects of nanotechnology on military tactical gear:

The first products made from nanomachines will be stronger fibers. Eventually, we will be able to replicate anything, including diamonds , water and food. Famine could be eradicated by machines that fabricate foods to feed the hungry.

In the computer industry, the ability to shrink the size of transistors on silicon microprocessors will soon reach its limits. Nanotechnology will be needed to create a new generation of computer components. Molecular computers could contain storage devices capable of storing trillions of bytes of information in a structure the size of a sugar cube.

Nanotechnology may have its biggest impact on the medical industry. Patients will drink fluids containing nanorobots programmed to attack and reconstruct the molecular structure of cancer cells and viruses to make them harmless. There's even speculation that nanorobots could slow or reverse the aging process, and life expectancy could increase significantly. Nanorobots could also be programmed to perform delicate surgeries -- such nanosurgeons could work at a level a thousand times more precise than the sharpest scalpel. By working on such a small scale, a nanorobot could operate without leaving the scars that conventional surgery does. Additionally, nanorobots could change your physical appearance. They could be programmed to perform cosmetic surgery, rearranging your atoms to change your ears, nose, eye color or any other physical feature you wish to alter.

Nanotechnology has the potential to have a positive effect on the environment. For instance, airborne nanorobots could be programmed to rebuild the thinning ozone layer. Contaminants could be automatically removed from water sources, and oil spills could be cleaned up instantly. Manufacturing materials using the bottom-up method of nanotechno

logy also creates less pollution than conventional manufacturing processes. Our dependence on non-renewable resources would diminish with nanotechnology. Many resources could be constructed by nanomachines. Cutting down trees, mining coal or drilling for oil may no longer be necessary. Resources could simply be constructed by nanomachines.

The promises of nanotechnology sound great, don't they? Maybe even unbelievable? But researchers say that we will achieve these capabilities within the next century. And if nanotechnology is, in fact, realized, it might be the human race's greatest scientific achievement yet, completely changing every aspect of the way we live.

APPLICATION OF NANOTECHNOLOGY IN CIVIL ENGINEERING

APPLICATION OF NANOTECHNOLOGY IN CONSTRUCTION
Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale.
Nanotechnology is concerned with objects between 1 and 100nm in size.( Nano meter)

1 Nanometer – 1 x 10-9m.

Applications of nano technology in civil engineering are numerous. Some of the applications are elaborated below.

Application in concrete:
Addition of nanoscale materials into cement could improve its performance. Use of nano-SiO2 could significantly increase the compressive for concrete, containing large volume fly ash, at early age and improve pore size distribution by filling the pores between large fly ash and cement particles at nanoscale. The dispersion/slurry of amorphous nanosilica is used to improve segregation resistance for self-compacting concrete. It has also been reported that adding small amount of carbonnanotube (1%) by weight could increase both compressive and flexural strength.


Cracking is a major concern for many structures. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is working on healing polymers, which include a microencapsulated healing agent and a catalytic chemical trigger. When the microcapsules are broken by a crack, the healing agent is released into the crack and contact with the catalyst. The polymerization happens and bond the crack faces. The selfhealing polymer could be especially applicable to fix the microcracking in bridge piers and columns. But it requires costly epoxy injection.


Application in Steel

Steel is a major construction material. Its properties, such as strength, corrosion resistance, and weld ability, are very important for the design and construction. It is possible to develop new, low carbon, highperformance steel (HPS). The new steel was developed with higher corrosion-resistance and weld ability by incorporating copper nanoparticles from at the steel grain boundaries.

Coating
The coatings incorporating certain nanoparticles or nanolayers have been developed for certain purpose. It is one of the major applications of nanotechnology in construction. For example, TiO2 is used to coat glazing because of its sterilizing and anti fouling properties. The TiO2 will break down and disintegrate organic dirt through powerful catalytic reaction. Furthermore, it is hydrophilic, which allow the water to spread evenly over the surface and wash away dirt previously broken down. Other special coatings also have been developed, such as anti-fraffiti, thermal control, energy sawing, antireflection coating.

Nanosensors
Sensors have been developed and used in construction to monitor and/or control the environment condition and the materials/structure performance. One advantage of these sensors is their dimension (10 -9m to 10-5m). These sensors could be embedded into the structure during the construction process. Smart aggregate, a low cost piezoceramic-based multi-functional device, has been applied to monitor early age concrete properties such as moisture, temperature, relative humidity and early age strength development. The sensors can also be used to monitor concrete corrosion and cracking. The smart aggregate can also be used for structure health monitoring. The disclosed system can monitor internal stresses, cracks and other physical forces in the structures during the structures’ life. It is capable of providing an early indication of the health of the structure before a failure of the structure can occur.

Applications Of Nanotechnology In Textiles And Other Fields

Nanotechnology is an emerging interdisciplinary technology that has been booming in many areas during the recent decade, including materials science, mechanics, electronics, optics, medicine, plastics, energy, electronics, and aerospace. Its profound societal impact has been considered as the huge momentum to usher in a second industrial revolution. The "nanD" in nanotechnolgy comes from the Greek word "nanos" that means dwarf. Scientists use this prefix to indicate 1 0-9 or one-billionth. One nanometer is one-billionth meter that is about 1 00,000 times smaller than the diameter of a single human hair.

Nanotechnology endeavors are aimed at manipulating atoms, molecules and nanosize particles in a precise and controlled manner in order to build materials with a fundamentally new organization and novel properties. The embryo of nanotechnology is "atomic assembly", which was first publicly articulated in 1959 by physicist Richard Feynman. Nanotechnology is called a "bottom up" technology by which bulk materials can be built precisely in tiny building blocks, different from the traditional manufacture "top down" technology. Therefore, resultant materials have fewer defects and higher quality. The fundamentals of nanotechnology lie in the fact that properties of substances dramatically change when their size is reduced to the nanometer range. When a ulk material is divided into small size particles with one or more dimension (length, width, or thickness) in the nanometer range or even smaller, the individual particles exhibit unexpected properties, different from those of the bulk material. It is known that atoms and molecules possess totally different behaviors than those of bulk materials; while the properties of the former are described by quantum mechanics, the properties of the latter are governed by classic mechanics. Between these two distinct domains, the nanometer range is a murky threshold for the transition of a material's behavior. For example, ceramics, which normally are brittle, can easily be made deformable when their grain size is reduced to the low nanometer range. A gold particle of 1 nm across shows red color. Moreover, a small amount of nanosize species can interfere with matrix polymer that is usually in the similar size range, bringing up the performance of resultant system to an unprecedented level. These are the reasons why nanotechnology has attracted large amounts of federal funding, research activity and media attention. The textile industry has already impacted by nanotechnology. Research involving nanotechnology to improve performances or to create unprecedented functions of textile materials are flourishing. These research endeavors are mainly focused on using nanosize substances and generating nanostructures during manufacturing and finishing processes.

Nanotechnology - A Process of Evolution

Anyone that realizes that nanotechnology news and the headlines related to nano news are ever-changing, also must realize that nanotechnology is a field that is under the process of a rapid evolution. There are many new nanotechnology jobs currently opening up and anyone currently pursuing the study of Nanoscience is assured that there will be plenty of nano jobs in the future. New facilities and scientific teams are being established and assembled all the time, and the more advances that are made in the field of nanotechnology, the more promising the nano jobs outlook will be. Nano news headlines will continue to evolve as the field of nanotechnology evolves and reveals the endless discoveries and inventions being created by nanotech researchers from all over the world.

We need to be clear about the difference between Nanoscience and nanotechnology before we begin to note all of the advances being made in the field. First, Nanoscience is simply the study of nanostructures, while nanotechnology is the implementation and application of such understandings in various industries throughout the world. In the nanotechnology field, new students of Nanoscience will be entering into the industry in search of nano jobs that match their level of skill and educational focus. This shouldn't be a problem however as the food, medical, space, cosmetic, and electronic industries are turning to the use of nanotechnologies to improve upon industry operations, manufacturing, and processing.

The word Nanotechnology is making it on nanotechnology news headlines nearly every day. More universities are offering coursework and programs specifically for the pursuit of Nanoscience studies; this is to address the future demand for nanotech researchers and this is a positive sign for those seeking nanotechnology jobs, both now and in the future. Students of Nanoscience will primarily focus on the study of nanostructures and how such structures can be manipulated. When moving into the field of nanotechnology and working in various nanotechnology jobs, nano researchers will usually deal with two chief forms of nanotechnology: bottom up and top down nanotechnologies. The latter forms of nanotechnology refer to the directional operation of such workings; Top down nanotech work involves the miniaturization of structures while the bottom down nanotechnology field focuses on the enlargement of various structures.

So why are so many industries opening up new avenues for nano research, nanotechnology jobs, and development? If someone notes the latest nanotechnology news headlines it isn't too difficult to surmise; many of the advances in nanotech research are proving to benefit industries by helping them save money in production and manufacturing arenas. Cost saving processes of manufacturing are being continuously developed through nanotechnologies, and both industries and consumers are benefiting from the discoveries. New avenues of nanotech research are also paving inroads in the medical industries as innovative health treatments, diagnostic equipments and methods, and better treatments are being discovered as well. Since recent advances have exhibited a positive effect for industries and consumers, there is a push for more advances in the field of nano research.

Developments in nanotechnology are currently exhibiting a certain potential for aiding humanity and changing the world in which we live too. Nano research is being conducted presently that can be used in energy conversation efforts, as well as in filtering water so that people can have access to fresh, clean water in areas of the world where pure water is a true commodity. Thus, nanotechnology news will, undoubtedly, soon be revealing headlines about world wide use of nanotechnology. Those individuals interested in the future developments in the field of nanotech research need to monitor the headlines closely as new nano news emerges. It will allow those seeking nanotechnology information to remain informed, and current as far as an awareness about the latest developments as well as some of the existing controversy that surrounds the emerging discoveries in this exciting field.

NANOTECHNOLOGY IN MEDICINE

Nanotechnology, over recent years, has seen a surge in research activity, with great potential in a wide range of applications including drug delivery, diagnostics, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The development of tools like the scanning tunneling microscope and the atomic force microscope has enabled researchers to observe structures on the nanoscale, where materials may exhibit different properties due to their size.

Also, the development of new materials like carbon nanotubes and buckyballs, along with the improved understanding of the molecular processes linked to diseases has provided novel approaches in improving current therapeutic and diagnostic tools.

The majority of current commercial applications of nanotechnology to medicine are geared towards drug delivery to enable new modes of action, as well as better targeting and bioavailability of existing medicinal substances.

The aim of this paper is to present the various aspects, the benefits and disadvantages of nanotechnology in the field of medicine, considering drug delivery as a major aspect.

In drug delivery, nanotechnology is just beginning to make an impact. Many of the current "nano" drug delivery systems, however, are remnants of conventional drug delivery systems that happen to be in the nanometer range, such as liposome, polymeric micelles, nanoparticles, dendrimers, and nanocrystals.

The importance of nanotechnology in drug delivery is in the concept and ability to manipulate molecules and supramolecular structures for producing devices with programmed functions. The nanoparticles used for drug delivery present a mechanism to overcome the challenges posed by other drug delivery systems.

Some of the challenges of most drug delivery systems include poor bioavailability, in vivo stability, solubility, intestinal absorption, sustained and targeted delivery to site of action, therapeutic effectiveness, side effects, and plasma fluctuations of drugs which either fall below the minimum effective concentrations or exceed the safe therapeutic concentrations. However, nanotechnology in drug delivery is an approach designed to overcome these challenges due to the development and fabrication of nanostructures at submicron scale and nanoscale which are mainly polymeric and have multiple advantages. Generally, nanostructures have the ability to protect drugs encapsulated within them from hydrolytic and enzymatic degradation in the gastrointestinal tract; target the delivery of a wide range of drugs to various areas of the body for sustained release and thus are able to deliver drugs, proteins and genes through the peroral route of administration.They increase oral bioavailability of drugs due to their specialized uptake mechanisms such as absorptive endocytosis and are able to remain in the blood circulation for a longer time, releasing the incorporated drug in a sustained and continuous manner leading to less plasma fluctuations thereby minimizing side-effects caused by drugs.