C2 2.6 Nanoscience

Key points and Learning objectives

What is nanoscience?

• Nanoscience is the study of small particles that are between 1 and 100 nanometres in size. A nanometre (1nm) is one thousand millionth of a metre or a billionth of a metre ( 0. 000000001m). Nanoscience are structures that are just a few hundred atoms in size or even smaller (between 1 and 100nm in size).

What are the potential benefits and risks associated with nanoscience?

• Nanoparticles behave differently from the materials they arae made from on a large scale. Nanoparticles have very big surface areas which would make them very effective as catalysts but it also means they can be dangerous as their large surface area means that they could be explosive.
• The more nanoparticles are used the more likely it is for them to…