American Chemical Society

NCW 2012

Nanotechnology: The Smallest BIG Idea in Science!

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WHAT IS NANOTECHNOLOGY?AND

WHY IS IT SUCH A BIG IDEA?

Nanotechnology: Small, Different, New

• The nanometer is extremely small.

• At the nanometer scale, materials may behave differently.

• We can harness this new behavior to make new technologies.

Nanometer:Part of The Metric System

kilometer km 1,000 1X103

meter m 1 1X100

millimeter mm 1/1,000 1X10-3

micrometer m 1/1,000,000 1X10-6

nanometer nm 1/1,000,000,000 1X10-9

picometer pm 1/1,000,000,000,000 1X10-12

Nanometer:Part of The Metric System

kilometer km 1,000

meter m 1

millimeter mm 1/1,000

micrometer m 1/1,000,000

nanometer nm 1/1,000,000,000

picometer pm 1/1,000,000,000,000

A Nanometer is Extremely Small.

In the time it takes to read this sentence, your fingernails will have grown approximately one nanometer (1 nm) in length.

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A Nanometer is Extremely Small:If you could paint a gallon of paint one nanometer thick, how much area would it cover?

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?

A Nanometer is Extremely Small:If you could paint a gallon of paint one nanometer thick, how much area would it cover?

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A square 1.2 x 1.2 miles or 936 acres!

That is almost 1,000 football fields.

At the nanometer scale, materials may behave differently.

Some of the Characteristics that can change:

Color

Melting point

Strength

Conductivity

Reactivity

Gold at the Nano Scale

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Gold

Nano Gold

Gold at the Normal Scale

Properties at the Nano Scale:

Aluminum at the Normal Scale

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Aluminum at the Nano Scale

Aluminum

Properties at the Nano Scale:

Carbon at the Normal Scale

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Carbon at the Nano Scale

Properties at the Nano Scale:

Pencil ‘lead’

Graphene

Nanotechnology Can Lead to New Products and Applications.

Where is Nanotechnology Being Used?

Energy

Wind Turbine blade Superconducting power lines

Lithium ion batteriesPEM Fuel Cells

Apparel

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Nano silver socks

Nano self-cleaning t-shirt

Waterproof hiking shoes Nano water shedding swimsuit

Sunscreens

Nanosize zinc oxide sunscreens

Clean water

References:

• This presentation is based on Nano101, a PowerPoint presentation developed for the NISE Network with funding from the National Science Foundation under Award Numbers 0532536 and 0940143. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.”

• NISE Network: http://www.nisenet.org/

• Fine Filters: Filtering Solutions for Clean Water

• http://nanosense.org/activities/finefilters/index.html

• Information about products and applications

• http://www.nanotechproject.org/inventories/consumer/