Nanomaterials industrial applications

The increase in environmental awareness and the acute effects of some toxic compounds have raised questions over the safety of using many chemicals invented for agricultural and industrial applications. A great deal of current research addresses the management and remediation of old contaminated sites. Recent concerns regard the safety of consumer chemicals, especially nanomaterials the effect of pharmaceuticals on ecosystems and the combined effect that chemical cocktails have on human and ecosystem health. 

During past decades, a relatively new method attracted much of attention of experimentalists, namely, the sol-gel method widely implemented in numerous scientific and industrial applications. Actually, it caused a breakthrough in material science it is worth mentioning that sol-gel routes are cmcial for synthesis of nanomaterials, and one of methods of the 21st century namely, commercial nanoporous glasses are readily available on the market just thanks to sol-gel technologies. 

Industrial interest in nanomaterials derives from the novel properties they exhibit. These are defined for this entry as materials having engineered discrete particulate domains with diameters in the range of 1 nm to a few hundred nanometers. These domains may appear in many forms, such as dispersions of nanoparticles in a liquid, on surfaces, or embedded in a continuous matrix. The unique properties of nanomaterials are a consequence of the small size and extremely large interfacial areas. In this regime, dramatic variations in the chemical and physical properties of a material may be effected. Representative examples of size-critical properties, enabling new industrial applications, reviewed in this entry include surface and interfacial, catalytic, optical, and mechanical. 

The capability to controllably engineer discrete nanoscale particulate domains in a material is a powerful tool for accessing new and unique material properties that enable innovative industrial applications. It is expected that research and development work on nanomaterials will continue to increase and numerous new applications will be identified. 

To make coagulated bulk nanomaterials (Fig. 11.2), for example fumed silica or carbon black, more suitable for industrial applications, a controlled aggregation... 

Nanomaterials represent today s cutting edge in the development of novel advanced materials, which promise tailor-made functionality for unique applications in all important industrial sectors. Nanomaterials can be clusters of atoms, grains 100 nm in size, fibers that are less than 100 nm in diameter, films that are less than 100 nm in thickness, nanoholes, and composites that are a combination of these. In other words, it implies that the microstructures (crystallites, crystal boundaries) are nanoscale [1]. Nanomaterials include atom clusters, nanoparticles, nanotubes, nanorods, nanowires, nanobelts, nanofilms, compact nanostructured bulk materials, and nanoporous materials [2]. Materials in nanosize range exhibit... 

This section emphasizes recent research on different aspects of chitosan-based functional nanomaterials, including applications of chitosan-based functional metal nanoparticles (gold, iron oxide, and silica), carbon-based nanomaterials (CNTs, graphene and fullerene), quantum dots, and liposomes for tissue engineering, wound dressing, drug delivery, cancer diagnosis, and some industrial applications. 

Another problem limiting the application of nanociystalline materials is prep>aration of nanocrystalline alloys. Currently, the bulk metallic nanomaterials can only be prepared at the laboratory scale, usually by compacting prepared nanocrystalline powders. However, consolidation of the nanopowders into bulk materials needs high temperature and pressure which may considerably coarsen the structure. Because of this difficulty, surface nanocoating has been considered a potential industry application. Nanocrystalline costing are often prepared by chemical vapour deposition (CVD), physical vapour deposition (PVD), electrochemical deposition, electro-spark deposition, and laser and electron beam surface treatment. 

Micelle and microemulsion systems find applications in human activities, spanning from the conservation of cultural heritage [41] to the preparation of a variety of nanocrystalline materials [42], and their possible uses in drug delivery [43], synthesis of nanomaterials, etc. Micelle and IL-based microemulsion systems are prospective to improve many features of their traditional counterparts [44,45], and, in this context, the possibility of modifying both the topology and the morphology of these soft nanoparticles can be of great importance in view of their industrial applications. 

Nanomaterials science has gained a lot of attention over the past 25 years. In many different areas, nanomaterials have already entered into industrial applications but we are still just at the beginning of a new scientific and industrial revolution driven by the advances in nanomaterials science. 

For the arc discharge and the laser ablation methods, the obtained carbon nanomaterials contain only few defects, are usually entangled, present various lengths and diameters, and incorporate a large percentage of nitrogen, up to 33 at% [25-28]. However, these synthesis methods are able to produce neither CNTs nor N-CNTs in large quantities for potential industrial applications. In addition, the product requires further purification to separate the CNTs or N-CNTs from the carbon-based by-products and the residual catalytic metals. 

Because of these unique and unusual properties, nanomaterials are finding niches in electronic, biomedical, sporting, energy production, and other industrial applications. Some are discussed in this text, including the following ... 

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