Nanotechnology is a much talked about, and rapidly expanding area of science,
which is sometimes little understood. It looks set to make a significant impact
on human life and, with numerous commercial developments emerging, will become a
major industry over the coming years. Nanotechnology can be broadly described as
developing or exploiting products at nanometre dimensions (i.e. as having one
dimension less than 100 nanometres). Such materials have a larger surface area
to volume ratio than conventional materials which provides them with an
increased level of reactivity, and consequently, toxicity per unit mass. This
book sets the subject into context by first of all describing the current