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Nanotechnology,
the revolutionary science and art of manipulating matter at the
atomic or molecular scale. Nanotechnology is not just about the size
of very small things. More important, it is about structure and the
ability to work. Research in areas related to nanomaterial is needed
to develop manufacturing techniques, in particular, is a synergy of
top-down with bottom-up processes.
When a matter is as small as 1 to
100 nanometers, many of its features will easily change and form
into many different unique conditions both different from
macro-matters and single atom due to the quanta effect, regional
confinement of matter, and huge surface or interface effects. The
final objective of nanometer technology is to produce products of
special functions with new physical and chemical features by making
atoms, molecules and matters presenting their features directly in
the length of a nanometer: t he strength of ten times of iron could
be very light, all information in a library could be stored in a
chip the size as a piece of square sugar, and tumors the sizes of
only several cells can be detected.
The US Business Weekly listed
nanometer technology as one of the three key areas in the 21st
century . From 1999, the US government decided to put the research
in nanometer technology into one of the 11 key areas in the first
ten years of the new century. In February 2000, US president Bill
Clinton announced that the US Federal Government would invest 495
million dollars to set up a work group and put forth a research
report on the promotion, saying that it will lead to the next
industrial revolution as a top priority.
Titanium Dioxide's photocatalytic
characteristic is greatly enhanced due to the advent of
nanotechnology. At nano-scale, not only the surface area of titanium
dioxide particle increases dramatically but also it exhibits other
effects on optical properties and size quantization. An increased
rate in photocatalytic reaction is observed as the redox potential
increase as the size decreases. Energy from any ambient light source
can be used effectively as the energy source of photocatalysis
instead of UV light.
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