Nanotechnology applications have become an integral part of shaping our everyday life, so much so that it’s changing the course of humanity.
Microchips and electronic transistors have been around for over 70 years, getting smaller and less expensive as time goes on. According to Phys.org, to continue this shrinking trend nanotechnology is making leaps into the future by attempting even smaller proportions, on a nanometer scale.
A nanometer is so small it can hardly be measured, one billionth of a meter in size to be exact, and involves manipulating individual atoms to create working nanoscale devices. Shrinking a device can affect its performance so perfecting this technology is key to ensuring we can all benefit from its properties.
As nanotechnology progresses, it’s benefits are already being felt right across the globe, and in many different sectors. Here are six keys areas in which nanotechnology is making a bold difference:
- Wearable fitness technology
Gives us the ability to monitor health and fitness through wearable technology. The healthcare industry is taking advantage of these devices to help pinpoint problems within patients through the data collected. The latest proposals in this area consist of wearable tattoos or even being injected with sensors to deliver valuable information from inside our bodies.
- Medical nanobots
Robots or electronic devices that interfere with our body signals to control organ function are already here. Micro-motor powered nanobots recently delivered a nano-particle compound directly into the gut tissue of a live mouse to demonstrate it’s potential.
- Sensors
Sensors are becoming crucial to monitoring, alerting, protecting and defending sensitive assets. Sensor technology has got so small that it can now be printed on strips of plastic, which can be rolled out over large areas to protect and monitor sensitive sites.
- Self-healing
Nanotechnology is being used to alter the structure of materials at the nano-scale level, making them susceptible to water, for example. This is being taken one step further by the development of technologies that can self-heal. Damage to spacecraft in flight can be fixed quite quickly by the self-healing properties of a certain form of nanotechnology.
- Big data benefits
The data that all the above-mentioned technologies will omit needs to be collated and assessed somehow. Therefore, providing solutions to help manage, aid or prevent their effects is important. Nanotechnology is helping to create extremely dense memory capabilities that allow super-sized storage capabilities to tackle this.
- Environmental benefits
Nanotechnologies can be used to capture energy from the environment. For example, capture and store energy from movement, lights, temperature variations and other sources with high conversion efficiency.
Nanotechnology is key to not only shaping the future of humanity, but also improving and securing it too. The benefits of this technology are mind-boggling and endless, and the quicker it develops the better our future will become.