Nanotech

1. 1. Micro machines

   → Electronics is one of the subsectors where the application of nanotech is at its most advanced, with semiconductors relying on ever smaller and more powerful transistors.

   → The challenge is to develop manufacturing processes that can keep up with the increasing sophistication of components while limiting skyrocketing costs.

2. 2. Targeted medicine

   → Nanomedicine — attaching microparticles to drugs — holds the promise of targeting only diseased cells and avoiding healthy ones, as well as releasing drugs in a more controlled way.

   → Holding back these applications is a broader lack of understanding around the efficacy of drugs across a large patient population.

3. A new era for electric cars?

   → Incorporating nanomaterials like graphene — a “wonder material” made of a single layer of carbon atoms — into lithium-ion batteries expands their energy-generating surface area and thus improves energy density.

   → The biggest challenge for startups developing these components remains cost, forcing them to demonstrate capabilities that are advanced enough to justify the price of their batteries.

4. 4. Reap what you nano-sow

   → Similar to drug delivery, nanotechnology could be used in agriculture to improve the efficiency of fertilisers and pesticides by letting them be absorbed precisely where in the plant they’re needed and in the correct quantities.

   → Nanobiosensors are another application, opening up the possibility of monitoring crop stress and soil health in real time and at much higher sensitivity and specificity than conventional biosensors.

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