Talk:Nanomaterials

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Untitled
This topic is greatly under represented and simplified. There are many other types of nanomaterials other than fullerenes and nanoparticles. On size, I would like to see more written on size effects and materials properties (Petch, McHale, etc.) Another important point needing description is how nanomaterials can be incorporated into other materials (ex. polymers) to impart better properties.

At the end of this page, in the Safety section, there's a large chunk of unintelligible text that I can't see to be able to remove, because it does not show up at the edit screen. Can someone do something about it? ThunderBird (talk) 22:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Most of the page is lacking citations —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nolanmeyer (talk • contribs) 02:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 5 April 2021 and 21 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): DavidTas.

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Title
Should the title of the article be Nanomaterial with a redirection from Nanomaterials (template R from plural) in order to conform with Wikipedia conventions? Coyets (talk) 12:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think so - "Nanomaterials", with the 's', is the name of the field, because of its connection to Materials science. I'm going to update the lead to make this more clear.  Antony-22 (talk) 21:36, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Are all of these wrong?
The article states that "...materials reduced to the nanoscale can suddenly [sic] show very different properties compared to what they exhibit on a macroscale, enabling unique applications. For instance, opaque substances become transparent (copper); inert materials attain catalytic properties (platinum); stable materials turn combustible (aluminum); solids turn into liquids at room temperature (gold); insulators become conductors (silicon)."

Are any of these "instances" correct -- that is, do the nanostructured materials or particles actually have the property, while the corresponding microstructured or bulk materials actually don't? I think the scores are (N Y Y N N) and (Y N N N Y), adding up to (N N N N N). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.127.54.174 (talk) 21:05, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * In my knowledge, the scores are YYYNY (I might be wrong on liquid gold and silicon might be incorrect example for 5). References are required though. Another note, I support removal of the section listed below. Materialscientist (talk) 22:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Is any of this about the topic, nanomaterials?
I've removed the following, because it is all about nanoscale devices, not materials. Maybe it should find a home somewhere else.

Size concerns
Another concern is that the volume of an object decreases as the third power of its linear dimensions, but the surface area only decreases as its second power. This somewhat subtle and unavoidable principle has huge ramifications. For example the power of a drill (or any other machine) is proportional to the volume, while the friction of the drill's bearings and gears is proportional to their surface area. For a normal-sized drill, the power of the device is enough to handily overcome any friction. However, scaling its length down by a factor of 1000, for example, decreases its power by 10003 (a factor of a billion) while reducing the friction by only 10002 (a factor of "only" a million). Proportionally it has 1000 times less power per unit friction than the original drill. If the original friction-to-power ratio was, say, 1%, that implies the smaller drill will have 10 times as much friction as power. The drill is useless.

For this reason, while super-miniature electronic integrated circuits are fully functional, the same technology cannot be used to make working mechanical devices beyond the scales where frictional forces start to exceed the available power. So even though you may see microphotographs of delicately etched silicon gears, such devices are currently little more than curiosities with limited real world applications, for example, in moving mirrors and shutters. Surface tension increases in much the same way, thus magnifying the tendency for very small objects to stick together. This could possibly make any kind of "micro factory" impractical: even if robotic arms and hands could be scaled down, anything they pick up will tend to be impossible to put down. The above being said, molecular evolution has resulted in working cilia, flagella, muscle fibers and rotary motors in aqueous environments, all on the nanoscale. These machines exploit the increased frictional forces found at the micro or nanoscale. Unlike a paddle or a propeller which depends on normal frictional forces (the frictional forces perpendicular to the surface) to achieve propulsion, cilia develop motion from the exaggerated drag or laminar forces (frictional forces parallel to the surface) present at micro and nano dimensions. To build meaningful "machines" at the nanoscale, the relevant forces need to be considered. We are faced with the development and design of intrinsically pertinent machines rather than the simple reproductions of macroscopic ones.

All scaling issues therefore need to be assessed thoroughly when evaluating nanotechnology for practical applications.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.127.54.174 (talk • contribs)

I will move this text to the Nanoelectronics article. Antony-22 (talk) 03:07, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Strong Nanomaterials?
I was wandering why this page doesn't have any information on extremely strong nanomaterials, like Buckypaper. I came here looking for information e.g. on why they are so strong and perhaps on the applications, so if there is someone who knows about that, I think that's missing from the background section.--90.199.141.64 (talk) 22:02, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Are sol-gels nanomaterials?
None of the cited references in the sol-gel section contain the words "nanomaterial" or "nanotechnology". Unless someone can come up with a reference that says that sol-gels are indeed considered nanomaterials, I would suggest removing the section and moving the text to Sol-gel. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 22:20, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Sol-gel is one of the most common techniques to produce nanoparticles or nanoporous nano/micro particles, but, this section was written and/or copy/pasted by a troubled editor (it is a copy of a section in sol-gel, with a bundle of references added). I would either redirect this section to sol-gel or write a short summary and redirect. References are not precious - there are thousands on this topic, and I would use google books anyway. Materialscientist (talk) 05:56, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I have redirected this section to sol-gel and added one sentence that simply states sol-gel is a process used to manufacture nanomaterials. I hope that is ok. There is no need to have duplication of content from another article. Cheers Polyamorph (talk) 13:40, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a good change, but my question was actually about inclusion rather than the content itself. I trust your expertise, but it would be good to pick out a ref that explicitly says "sol-gels are nanomaterials".  It strikes me as something that existed way before the concept of nanotechnology was invented and popularized, and picked up the association with nanomaterials much later.  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 04:31, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The "nano" hype started only recently, although many production techniques were existing long before that. Most of them can yield various sizes, and sol-gel yields nano-sizes much easier than other methods. It is hugely popular (especially in Asia) because of simplicity and low costs. (Sorry, this is not the answer to your question, I'm just too lazy to dig out a book generally discussing the nano character of the sol-gel synthesis :-). PS. Spent a minute and found this :) Materialscientist (talk) 04:48, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Definition of nanomaterial
On 18 October, the European Commission agreed the wording of a definition. Perhaps that is a useful opening sentence for this article, since the current opening sentence is terribly weak.

"nanomaterials are a natural, incidental or manufactured material containing particles, in an unbound state or as an aggregate or as an agglomerate and where, for 50% or more of the particles in the number size distribution, one or more external dimensions is in the size range 1 nm – 100 nm."

86.184.151.140 (talk) 07:31, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Good find! Do you have a URL or other citation?  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 20:57, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and added to the article lead. Materialscientist (talk) 23:26, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

National Research Council report on Nanomaterials
Hi, I'd like to add some text about a recent National Research Council report about Nanomaterials.


 * A 2012 United States National Research Council report found that there is a critical need for a research strategy to build knowledge of the unique properties of nanomaterials . The report sets out a conceptual framework for environmental, health, and safety research on nanomaterials, develops a research plan with short- and long-term research priorities, and estimates the resources needed to implement the plan. In a subsequent report, the report’s authoring committee will evaluate progress toward these goals.

Does this seem OK? Earlgrey101 (talk) 16:17, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Hm.. sounds like a trivial message to me (sort of "we need to study"). Materialscientist (talk) 02:01, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it might be interesting for readers to know that the study was carried out, and some people may even want to look at the report itself to learn more about the research plan? Earlgrey101 (talk) 17:19, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe, but the goal of wikipedia is to provide information, not to redirect to information published elsewhere. Materialscientist (talk) 04:17, 24 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, if you think this is not worth mentioning I'll leave this out. Best, Earlgrey101 (talk) 13:19, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

List of NIOSH sources on nanomaterials
https://wpx.wmflabs.org/requests/en/request/564 Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 18:57, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

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