Nanotechnology is one of the fastest growing scientific fields of both research and industry.1,2 Its activity can be measured in terms of increase in research funding2,3, expected economic impact2,4 and emerging jobs4. The attractiveness of nanomaterials is mostly due to the enhancement of key properties of traditional materials by reducing their size to the nano-scale (about 1 – 100 nanometres) which results in new surface-related phenomena that can be exploited in many ways.
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Growing Importance of Emerging Nanomaterials: The last decade has seen the emergence of numerous nano-enabled devices (NED). Nano and small submicron particles are becoming more common in consumer goods as well as in industrial and public large-scale use. Industries impacted range from cosmetics and food to aerospace engineering.
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Toxicity of Familiar Materials: Some questions still exist within the nanosafety community about the toxicity of several familiar materials, notably concerns about the presence of acute toxicity for variants of titania, quantum dots and silver. Within the FutureNanoNeeds (FNN) infrastructure, we aim to address much of this uncertainty.
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