NANOBIOTECHNOLOGY INTRO

What is nanotechnology? The concept of nanotechnology was given

by Nobel laureate Richard P. Feynman in 1959 during his famous lecture
“There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom”

A human hair is approximately 80 000 nm wide

Credit: eSpin Technologies, Inc.
Nanotechnology refers to the branch of science and engineering devoted to designing,
producing, and using structures, devices, and systems by
manipulating atoms and molecules at nanoscale, i.e. having one or more dimensions of the
order of 100 nanometres (100 millionth of a millimetre) or less.

▪ Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter at the atomic scale to create

new materials, devices, and structures.

What is nanobiotechnology?
▪ Nanobiotechnology is a branch of biotechnology that involves the use of nanoscale
materials and techniques to study biological systems and develop new medical
technologies. It involves the integration of nanotechnology and biotechnology to
create nanoscale devices, materials, and systems for the diagnosis, treatment, and
prevention of diseases.

▪ Some examples of nanobiotechnology applications include nanoscale drug delivery

systems, nanoscale imaging agents for cancer diagnosis, and nanoscale biosensors for
disease detection.

Applications of nanotechnology (describe each point by

yourself)
Nanotechnology has many applications, including:
Medicine
Nanomedicine is a medical application of nanotechnology. It has applications in drug
delivery, therapeutics, biomedical imaging, and more.
Environment
 Nanomaterials can be used to produce renewable energy, solar cells, and remediate the
environment. They can also be used to create nanobiosensors that detect pollutants.

Food
Nanotechnology can improve plant growth, crop yield, and reduce chemical inputs. It can
also be used to create nanofertilizers and nano-pesticides.

Some other applications of nanobiotechnology include:

✓ Nanoscale drug delivery systems
✓ Nanoscale imaging agents for cancer diagnosis
✓ Nanoscale biosensors for disease detection
✓ Gene delivery systems in gene therapy
✓ Detection of pathogens
✓ Tissue engineering
✓ Protein detection

Nanotechnology can improve agricultural production:

✓ Increasing input efficiency
✓ Minimizing losses
✓ Improving crop productivity
✓ Enhancing drought stress tolerance
✓ Improving nutrient and water uptake
✓ Increasing photosynthesis
✓ Increasing grain yield and harvest index
✓ Some applications of nanotechnology in agriculture include:
✓ Nanofertilizers: Improve crop yield
✓ Nanopesticides: Protect crops
✓ Nanobiosensors: Detect crop pathogens, soil conditions, and vegetation conditions
✓ Wastewater treatment
 ✓ Reducing polluted soil quality
✓ Plant and soil health assessment
✓ Nanotechnology can also be used in food processing, food packaging, nanoemulsions,
nanoencapsulations, nanoadditives, and nutraceutical delivery.

CHARACTERIZATION OF NANOPARTICLES
Nanoparticle, ultrafine unit with dimensions measured in nanometres (nm; 1 nm = 10−9 metre).
Nanoparticles exist in the natural world and are also created as a result of human activities. Because
of their submicroscopic size, they have unique material characteristics, and manufactured
nanoparticles may find practical applications in a variety of areas, including medicine, engineering,
catalysis, and environmental remediation.
Nanoparticles have many properties, including:
• Size: At least 50% of the particles in a nanoparticle have one or more external dimensions
between 1–100 nanometers.
• Magnetic: Nanoparticles become magnetic when an external magnet is present.
Materials with nanostructures have higher saturation magnetization and magnetic
coercivity values. If the external magnetic field is unable to further alter the magnetization
of a material, it is said to be in a magnetically saturated state. The amount of magnetic field
required to get a ferromagnetic material’s saturation magnetization to zero is known as
magnetic coercivity. Coercivity and saturation magnetization are both used to measure a
magnet’s strength. Due to the lowered size effect, the value of both of these attributes has
increased. Small particles have a single magnetic domain behavior that is easily aligned by
an external magnet, giving rise to improved magnetic properties.
• Optical: The color produced by nanoparticles can vary depending on their shape, size, or
type. When compared to bulk materials, nanomaterials exhibit distinctive optical
characteristics such as greater scattering, absorption, and luminescence.
• Mechanical: Mechanical properties vary with particle size.
The unique mechanical properties of nanomaterials are due to the increased number of
surface atoms and interfaces, which in turn leads to increased density of defects like grain
boundaries, dislocations, triple junctions, etc. Nanomaterials exhibit the following
mechanical properties as compared to bulk materials:
o Increased strength
o Increased toughness
o Increased hardness
o Increased ductility
o Decreased elasticity
• Surface area to volume ratio: Nanoparticles have a high surface area to volume ratio.
• Electrical: Nanoparticles like carbon nanotubes and graphene oxide have high electrical
conductivities.
Nanomaterials have lower thermal and electrical conductivities than bulk materials. The
classical free electron theory of metals states that the movement of electrons within a
metallic solid lead to electrical conductivity. Nanomaterials have a high density of grain
boundaries, which makes electric-phonon and phonon-phonon scattering effective and
reduces conductivity.
• Thermal properties of nanomaterials: Due to the high density of defects compared to bulk
materials, nanostructured materials have a higher thermal expansion coefficient, which
measures how the size of the material changes as a function of temperature.
• Nanoparticles can be natural, incidental, or manufactured. They can appear as an aerosol,
suspension, or emulsion.
• Melting point of nanomaterials: Nanostructured materials have higher proportions of atoms
on the surface and at grain boundaries than in the interior as compared to bulk materials,
and the number of surface atoms rises with decreasing size. When an atom’s vibrational
amplitude exceeds its bond length, melting of the substance occurs.
When heat is applied, the atoms in the surface and grain boundaries vibrate more readily
than the atoms in the interior, allowing melting to start on the surface and spread to the
interior. This characteristic causes the melting point of a freely standing nanomaterial to
be lower than that of bulk material. In the presence of nanomaterial, a matrix exerts
pressure that limits the oscillation of surface atoms. Nanomaterial will have a greater
melting point than bulk material under these circumstances.

• Catalytic properties of nanomaterials: The surface area of a substance affects its

catalytic activity. A study reveals that the percentage of surface atoms rises
 exponentially as size decreases. Greater surface area due to an increased fraction of
surface atoms exerts stronger catalytic activity than bulk material.

• Diffusivity: Nanostructured materials have more interfaces than bulk materials since
they are smaller in size. The interface offers simple diffusion pathways. Therefore, self-
diffusion along the defect side is more effective in nanostructured materials than in
their bulk analog.

Nanoparticular carrier systems:

What is nanocarrier system?
o Nanocarriers are defined as a system that loads drugs incorporated
into organic or inorganic matrixes with a size of 1–1000nm.

✓ Nanocarriers range from sizes of diameter 1–1000 nm, however due to the width
of microcapillaries being 200 nm, nanomedicine often refers to devices <200 nm.
Because of their small size, nanocarriers can deliver drugs to otherwise
inaccessible sites around the body. Since nanocarriers are so small, it is oftentimes
difficult to provide large drug doses using them. The emulsion techniques used
to make nanocarriers also often result in low drug loading and drug encapsulation,
providing a difficulty for the clinical use.

Basic classification:
(a) Carbon-based nanomaterials: Due to the unique catenation property, carbon can form
covalent bonds with other carbons in different hybridization states such as Sp, Sp2, and
Sp3 in order to form a variety of structures of small molecules and longer chains.
Carbon-based nanomaterials are found in morphological forms such as ellipsoids,
hollow tubes, or spheres. Graphene (Gr), carbon nanotubes (CNTs), Fullerenes (C60),
carbon nanofibers, carbon onions, and carbon black are the different categories of
carbon-based nanomaterials .

(b) Inorganic-based nanomaterials: These nanomaterials include metal-based

nanoparticles, metal oxide/hydroxide nanoparticles, and transition metal chalcogenide
(TMC) nanoparticles. These nanomaterials can be synthesized into metals like Ag, Au,
Fe nanoparticles, and metal oxides such as ZnO, TiO2, and Fe3O4, CeO2.
(c) Organic-based nanomaterials: These nanoscale materials are made mostly from organic
matter, aside from inorganic-based or carbon-based nanomaterials. The use of
noncovalent interactions for self-assembling and molecular designing helps to
transform the organic nanomaterials into coveted structures such as micelles,
dendrimers, ferritin, micelles, compact polymers, and liposomes nanoparticles. These
types of nanomaterials are usually biodegradable and nontoxic, and, therefore,
considered environmentally friendly materials.
PREPERATION OF NANOPARTICLES: PPT
APPLICATION OF SOME IMPORTANT NANOPARTICLES: PPT

H/W: Nanobiotechnology in plant science. ****