Nanoparticle, nanoparticle: nanoparticles of a gold-palladium alloy catalyzing hydrogen peroxide formation [Credit: Photo courtesy of Dr. David J. Willock, Cardiff University]nanoparticle: nanoparticles of a gold-palladium alloy catalyzing hydrogen peroxide formationPhoto courtesy of Dr. David J. Willock, Cardiff Universityultrafine unit with dimensions measured in nanometres (nm; 1 nm = 10−9 metre). Nanoparticles exist in the natural world and are also created as a result of human activities. Because of their submicroscopic size, they have unique material characteristics, and manufactured nanoparticles may find practical applications in a variety of areas, including medicine, engineering, catalysis, and environmental remediation.

Properties of nanoparticles

carbon nanotube [Credit: Illustration: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; photographs:(microelectromechanical devices) Courtesy Sandia National Laboratories, SUMMiT™ Technologies; (quantum corral) courtesy IBM Research Center, unauthorized used not permitted; (red blood cells) Susumu Nishinaga/Science Source; (human hair) Manfred Kage/Peter Arnold, Inc.; (dust mite) Andrew Syred/Science Source]carbon nanotubeIllustration: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; photographs:(microelectromechanical devices) Courtesy Sandia National Laboratories, SUMMiT™ Technologies; (quantum corral) courtesy IBM Research Center, unauthorized used not permitted; (red blood cells) Susumu Nishinaga/Science Source; (human hair) Manfred Kage/Peter Arnold, Inc.; (dust mite) Andrew Syred/Science SourceIn 2008 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defined a nanoparticle as a discrete nano-object where all three Cartesian dimensions are less than 100 nm. The ISO standard similarly defined two-dimensional nano-objects (i.e., nanodiscs and nanoplates) and one-dimensional nano-objects (i.e., nanofibres and nanotubes). But in 2011 the Commission of the European Union endorsed a more-technical but wider-ranging definition:


Under that definition a nano-object needs only one of its characteristic dimensions to be in the range 1–100 nm to be classed as a nanoparticle, even if its other dimensions are outside that range. (The lower limit of 1 nm is used because atomic bond lengths are reached at 0.1 nm.)

That size range—from 1 to 100 nm—overlaps considerably with that previously assigned to the field of colloid science—from 1 to 1,000 nm—which is sometimes alternatively called the mesoscale. Thus, it is not uncommon to find literature that refers to nanoparticles and colloidal particles in equal terms. The difference is essentially semantic for particles below 100 nm in size.

There are three major physical properties of nanoparticles, and all are interrelated: (1) they are highly mobile in the free state (e.g., in the absence of some other additional influence, a 10-nm-diameter nanosphere of silica has a sedimentation rate under gravity of 0.01 mm/day in water); (2) they have enormous specific surface areas (e.g., a standard teaspoon, or about 6 ml, of 10-nm-diameter silica nanospheres has more surface area than a dozen doubles-sized tennis courts; 20 percent of all the atoms in each nanosphere will be located at the surface); and (3) they may exhibit what are known as quantum effects. In addition, nanoparticles can be classified as hard (e.g., titania [titanium dioxide], silica [silica dioxide] particles, and fullerenes) or as soft (e.g., liposomes, vesicles, and nanodroplets). Thus, nanoparticles have a vast range of compositions, depending on the use or the product.

Nanoparticle-based technologies

field-emission microscope: nanowires as seen by a field-emission microscope [Credit: UC San Diego/Jacobs School of Engineering]field-emission microscope: nanowires as seen by a field-emission microscopeUC San Diego/Jacobs School of EngineeringIn general, nanoparticle-based technologies centre on opportunities for improving the efficiency, sustainability, and speed of already-existing processes. That is possible because, relative to the materials used traditionally for industrial processes (e.g., industrial catalysis), nanoparticle-based technologies use less material, a large proportion of which is already in a more “reactive” state. Other opportunities for nanoparticle-based technologies include the use of nanoscale zero-valent iron (NZVI) particles as a field-deployable means of remediating organochlorine compounds, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), in the environment. NZVI particles are able to permeate into rock layers in the ground and thus can neutralize the reactivity of organochlorines in deep aquifers. Other applications of nanoparticles are those that stem from manipulating or arranging matter at the nanoscale to provide better coatings, composites, or additives and those that exploit the particles’ quantum effects (e.g., quantum dots for imaging, nanowires for molecular electronics, and technologies for spintronics and molecular magnets).

Nanoparticle applications in materials

Many properties unique to nanoparticles are related specifically to the particles’ size. It is therefore natural that efforts have been made to capture some of those properties by incorporating nanoparticles into composite materials. An example of how the unique properties of nanoparticles have been put to use in a nanocomposite material is the modern rubber tire, which typically is a composite of a rubber (an elastomer) and an inorganic filler (a reinforcing particle), such as carbon black or silica nanoparticles.

For most nanocomposite materials, the process of incorporating nanoparticles is not straightforward. Nanoparticles are notoriously prone to agglomeration, resulting in the formation of large clumps that are difficult to redisperse. In addition, nanoparticles do not always retain their unique size-related properties when they are incorporated into a composite material.

Despite the difficulties with manufacture, the use of nanomaterials grew markedly in the early 21st century, with especially rapid growth in the use of nanocomposites. Nanocomposites were employed in the development and design of new materials, serving, for example, as the building blocks for new dielectric (insulating) and magnetic materials. The following sections describe some of the many applications of nanoparticles and nanocomposites in materials.


Similar to the way in which carbon and silica nanoparticles have been used as fillers in rubber to improve the mechanical properties of tires, such particles and others, including nanoclays, have been incorporated into polymers to improve their strength and impact resistance. In the early 21st century, increasing use of non-petroleum-based polymers that were derived from natural sources drove the development of “all-natural” nanocomposite polymers. Such materials incorporate a biopolymer derived from an alginate (a carbohydrate found in the cell wall of brown algae), cellulose, or starch; the biopolymer is used in conjunction with a natural nanoclay or a filler derived from the shells of crustaceans. The materials are biodegradable and do not leave behind potentially harmful or nonnatural residues.

Food packaging

Nanoparticles have been increasingly incorporated into food packaging to control the ambient atmosphere around food, keeping it fresh and safe from microbial contamination. Such composites use nanoflakes of clays and claylike particles, which slow down the ingress of moisture and reduce gas transport across the packaging film. It is also possible to incorporate nanoparticles with apparent antimicrobial effects (e.g., nanocopper or nanosilver) into such packaging. Nanoparticles that exhibit antimicrobial activity had also been incorporated into paints and coatings, making those products particularly useful for surfaces in hospitals and other medical facilities and in areas of food preparation.

Flame retardants

Nanoparticles were explored for their potential to replace additives based on flammable organic halogens and phosphorus in plastics and textiles. Studies had suggested that, in the event of a serious fire, products with nanoclays and hydroxide nanoparticles were associated with fewer emissions of harmful fumes than products containing certain other types of additives.

Batteries and supercapacitors

The ability to engineer nanocomposite materials to have very high internal surface areas for storing electrical charge in the form of small ions or electrons has made them especially valuable for use in batteries and supercapacitors. Indeed, nanocomposite materials have been synthesized for various applications involving electrodes. Composite materials based on carbon nanotubes and layered-type materials, such as graphene, were also researched extensively, making their first appearances in commercial devices in the early 2000s.


A long-term objective in materials science had been to transform ceramics that are brittle and prone to cracking into tougher, more resilient materials. By the early 21st century, researchers had achieved that goal by incorporating an effective blend of nanoparticles into ceramics materials. Other new ceramics materials that were under development included all-ceramic or polymer-ceramic blends, which combined the unique functional (e.g., electrical, magnetic, or mechanical) properties of a nanocomposite material with the properties of ceramics materials.

Light control

In the 1990s the development of blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which had the potential to produce white light at significantly reduced costs, inspired a revolution in lighting. Blue LEDs brought about a need for composite materials that could be used to coat the diodes to convert blue light into other wavelengths (such as red, yellow, or green) in order to achieve white light. One way of obtaining the desired light is by leveraging the size or quantum effect of small semiconducting particles. The application of such particles facilitated the development of nanocomposite polymers for greenhouse enclosures; the polymers optimize plant growth by effectively converting wavelengths of full-spectrum sunlight into the red and blue wavelengths used in photosynthesis. Light conversion in the above cases is achieved with submicron particles of inorganic phosphor materials incorporated into the polymer.

Nanoparticle applications in medicine

The small size of nanoparticles is especially advantageous in medicine; nanoparticles can not only circulate widely throughout the body but also enter cells or be designed to bind to specific cells. Those properties have enabled new ways of enhancing images of organs as well as tumours and other diseased tissues in the body. They also have facilitated the development of new methods of delivering therapy, such as by providing local heating (hyperthermia), by blocking vasculature to diseased tissues and tumours, or by carrying payloads of drugs.

Magnetic nanoparticles have been used to replace radioactive technetium for tracking the spread of cancer along lymph nodes. The nanoparticles work by exploiting the change in contrast brought about by tiny particles of superparamagnetic iron oxide in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Such particles also can be used to kill tumours via hyperthermia, in which an alternating magnetic field causes them to heat and destroy tissue on a local scale.

Nanoparticles can be designed to enhance fluorescent imaging or to enhance images from positron emission tomography (PET) or ultrasound. Those methods typically require that the nanoparticle be able to recognize a particular cell or disease state. In theory, the same idea of targeting could be used in aiding the precise delivery of a drug to a given disease site. The drug could be carried via a nanocapsule or a liposome, or it could be carried in a porous nanosponge structure and then held by bonds at the targeted site, thereby allowing the slow release of drug. The development of nanoparticles to aid in the delivery of a drug to the brain via inhalation holds considerable promise for the treatment of neurological disorders such as Parkinson disease, Alzheimer disease, and multiple sclerosis.

Nanoparticles and nanofibres play an important part in the design and manufacture of novel scaffold structures for tissue and bone repair. The nanomaterials used in such scaffolds are biocompatible. For example, nanoparticles of calcium hydroxyapatite, a natural component of bone, used in combination with collagen or collagen substitutes could be used in future tissue-repair therapies.

Nanoparticles also have been used in the development of health-related products. For example, a sunscreen known as Optisol, invented at the University of Oxford in the 1990s, was designed with the objective of developing a safe sunscreen that was transparent in visible light but retained ultraviolet-blocking action on the skin. The ingredients traditionally used in sunscreens were based on large particles of either zinc oxide or titanium dioxide or contained an organic sunlight-absorbing compound. However, those materials were not satisfactory: zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are very potent photocatalysts, and in the presence of water and sunlight they generate free radicals, which have the potential to damage skin cells and DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). Scientists proceeded to develop a nanoparticle form of titanium oxide that contained a small amount of manganese. Studies indicated that the nanoparticle-based sunscreen was safer than sunscreen products manufactured by using traditional materials. The improvement in safety was attributed to the introduction of manganese, which changed the semiconducting properties of the compound from n-type to p-type, thus shifting its Fermi level, or oxidation-reduction properties, and making the generation of free radicals less likely.

Treatments and diagnostic approaches based on the use of nanoparticles are expected to have important benefits for medicine in the future, but the use of nanoparticles also presents significant challenges, particularly regarding impacts on human health. For example, little is known about the fate of nanoparticles that are introduced into the body or whether they have undesirable effects on the body (see below Health effects of nanoparticles). Extensive clinical trials are needed in order to fully address concerns about the safety and effectiveness of nanoparticles used in medicine. There also are manufacturing problems to be overcome, such as the ability to produce nanoparticles under sterile conditions, which is required for medical applications.

Manufacture of nanoparticles

Nanoparticles are made by one of three routes: by comminution (the pulverization of materials), such as through industrial milling or natural weathering; by pyrolysis (incineration); or by sol-gel synthesis (the generation of inorganic materials from a colloidal suspension). Comminution is known as a top-down approach, whereas the sol-gel process is a bottom-up approach. Examples of those three processes (comminution, pyrolysis, and sol-gel synthesis) include the production of titania nanoparticles for sunscreens from the minerals anatase and rutile, the production of fullerenes or fumed silica (not to be confused with silica fume, which is a different product), and the production of synthetic (or Stöber) silica, of other “engineered” oxide nanoparticles, and of quantum dots. For the generation of small nanoparticles, comminution is a very inefficient process.

Detection, characterization, and isolation

The detection and characterization of nanoparticles present scientists with particular challenges. Being of a size that is at least four to seven times smaller than the wavelength of light means that individual nanoparticles cannot be detected by the human eye, and they are observable under optical microscopes only in liquid samples under certain conditions. Thus, in general, specialized techniques are required to see them, and none of those approaches is currently field-deployable.

transmission electron microscope: nano-C60 particles [Credit: Courtesy Professor Joseph Hughes, Georgia Institute of Technology/John Fortner, Rice University]transmission electron microscope: nano-C60 particlesCourtesy Professor Joseph Hughes, Georgia Institute of Technology/John Fortner, Rice UniversityTechniques to detect and characterize nanoparticles fall into two categories: direct, or “real space,” and indirect, or “reciprocal space.” Direct techniques include transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Those techniques can image nanoparticles, directly measure sizes, and infer shape information, but they are limited to studying only a few particles at a time. There are also significant issues surrounding sample preparation for electron microscopy. In general, however, those techniques can be quite effective for obtaining basic information about a nanoparticle.

Indirect techniques use X-rays or neutron beams and obtain their information by mathematically analyzing the radiation scattered or diffracted by the nanoparticles. The techniques of greatest relevance to nanoscience are small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), along with their surface-specific analogues GISAXS and GISANS, where GI is “grazing incidence,” and X-ray or neutron reflectometry (XR/NR). The advantage of those techniques is that they are able to simultaneously sample and average very large numbers of nanoparticles and often do not require any particular sample preparation. Indirect techniques have many applications. For example, in studies of nanoparticles in raw sewage, scientists used SANS measurements, in which neutrons readily penetrated the turbid sewage and scattered strongly from the nanoparticles, to follow the aggregation behaviour of the particles over time.

The isolation of nanoparticles from colloidal and larger matter involves specialized techniques, such as ultra centrifugation and field-flow fractionation. Such laboratory-based techniques are normally coupled to standard spectroscopic instrumentation to enable particular types of chemical characterization.

Nanoparticles in the environment

Nanoparticles occur naturally in the environment in large volumes. For example, the sea emits an aerosol of salt that ends up floating around in the atmosphere in a range of sizes, from a few nanometres upward, and smoke from volcanoes and fires contains a huge variety of nanoparticles, many of which could be classified as dangerous to human health. Dust from deserts, fields, and so on also has a range of sizes and types of particles, and even trees emit nanoparticles of hydrocarbon compounds such as terpenes (which produce the familiar blue haze seen in forests, from which the Great Smoky Mountains in the United States get their name).

Human-made (anthropogenic) nanoparticles are emitted by large industrial processes, and in modern life it is particles from power stations and from jet aircraft and other vehicles (namely, those powered by internal-combustion engines; car tires are also a factor) that constitute the major fraction of nanoparticle emissions. Types of nanoparticles that are emitted include partially burned hydrocarbons (in soot), ceria (cerium oxide; from vehicle exhaust catalysts), metallic dust (from brake linings), calcium carbonate (in engine lubricating oils), and silica (from car tires). Other sources of nanoparticles to the environment include the semiconductor industry, domestic and industrial wastewater discharges, the health care industry, and the photographic industry. However, all those emission levels are still considered to be lower than the levels of nanoparticles produced through natural processes. Indeed, recent human-made particles contribute only a small amount to air and water pollution.

Understanding the relationship between nanoparticles and the environment forms an important area of research. There are several mechanisms by which nanoparticles are believed to affect the environment negatively. Two scenarios that are under investigation are the possibilities (1) that the mobility and sorptive capacity of nanoparticles (natural or human-made) make them potent vectors (carriers) in the transport of chemical pollutants (e.g., phosphorus from sewage and agriculture), particularly in rivers and lakes, and (2) that some nanoparticles are able to reduce the functioning of (and may even disrupt or kill) naturally occurring microbial communities, as well as microbial communities that are employed in industrial processes (e.g., those that are used in sanitation processes, including sewage treatment).

Nanoparticles also can have beneficial impacts on the environment and appear to contribute to natural processes. Thus, in addition to the potential use of nanoparticles to remove chemical contaminants from the environment, scientists are investigating how nanoparticles interact with all life-forms—from fungi to microbes, algae, plants, and higher-order animals. That type of study is essential not only to improving scientists’ knowledge of nanoparticles but also to gaining a more complete understanding of life on Earth, since the soil is naturally full of nanoparticles, in a richly diverse environment.

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