What are the Top 5 Trends in Nano Technology?

1. Stronger Materials/Higher Strength Composites

Even lighter and stronger constructions than those made feasible by carbon fibre will be produced by the next generation of graphene and carbon nanotube-based electronics, which will increasingly be seen in automobiles, bicycles, and athletic goods.

The creation of carbon nanotube-pre-impregnated materials, which offer superior conductivity and solve one of the main problems with traditional carbon fibre/epoxy composites, is one area of advancement. Moreover, several space missions have already used carbon nanotube meshes.

2. Scalability of Production

The scalability of technology that can have an impact on grand challenge issues like food, water, energy, and the environment is a major hurdle in the production of nanomaterials. The major cause of these issues' enormous scale is their pervasiveness, which has led to the commoditization of connected business marketplaces. A technology that makes use of a special property of a nanomaterial frequently offers improvements in functional or engineering performance, but almost equally frequently, these technologies demand expensive, rare materials or labor-intensive, slow manufacturing processes.

Even while the program has excellent functional performance in the lab or at the prototype stage, the limited scalability frequently makes it difficult.

3. More Commercialization

Significant advancements in carbon nanotube manufacturing technologies are anticipated over the coming years, particularly in terms of regulating the purity and structure and lowering prices due to economies of scale.

"Advances will make the use of carbon nanotube materials even more compelling for mechanical engineers,"  Nanotechnology is enabling a wide range of improvements, in addition to revolutionising the automotive, aerospace, and sporting goods industries: thinner, more reasonably priced, and durable flat panel displays; better armour materials to protect soldiers; sensors for medical testing; more compassionate and successful treatments for cancer patients; improved cathode materials for safer and longer life Li-ion batteries; and the list goes on.

4. Sustainability

Finding nanotechnology solutions for sustainability is one of the key objectives of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, a U.S. government programme that coordinates communication and collaboration for nanotechnology efforts. Many cutting-edge energy storage and conversion projects are increasingly using nanomaterials and nanostructured surfaces, and nanomaterials and Nano manufacturing help create goods that are more energy efficient in both production and consumption.

According to some, this is accomplished by regulating the solid-solid reaction's thermodynamics by nanoscale size reduction, which can enhance energy-storage components like batteries, supercapacitors, and hydrogen storage. The fields of transportation, lighting, photovoltaics, and energy storage will have the biggest immediate effects on sustainability since they use less fuel and have more fuel-efficient and lighter materials. In terms of using nanostructured surfaces or materials to increase efficiencies from a perspective of electronic performance, whether it be batteries, solar cells, or LED lighting, the types of Nano technologies being used in all three of these are comparable.

5. Nanomedicine

The biomedical industry, where developments are being made in both the diagnosis and treatment fields, is where nanotechnology is being applied in the most interesting ways. A new therapy using a mix of gold Nano shells and lasers to eliminate cancer tumours with heat is being developed by Houston-based Nano spectra Biosciences. In the field of diagnostics, Nano sensors are enabling the ability to detect environmental toxins in the body as well as the detection, identification, and quantification of biological components in bodily fluids.