ABOUT NANOTECHNOLOGY

Nanotechnology is the art and science of manipulating matter between one and 100 nanometers in size. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. For comparison, a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometers wide. The nanoscale is the scale of atoms and molecules, the fundamental building blocks of the material world.

It is a scale hard to imagine. A nanometer is to a meter what an inch is to 15,783 miles. The ‘period’ at the end of this sentence is 1,000,000 nanometers in size. When things are this small, they are invisible to the eye or even a light microscope. Advanced materials science requires the Scanning Electron Microscope to view and tune these new and unique materials at this remarkable scale where:

*One inch equals 25.4 million nanometers*
*A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick*
*A single Virus is 50-100 nm*
*A DNA molecule is 2.5 nm*
*Your hair grows 1 nanometer every second*

OxiTitan has an average crystal size of only 7 nanometers containing only about 100 atoms!

In some cases, making things smaller changes their properties, making them harder or lighter, a different color, or conduct electricity. Currently, nanoscale materials are widely used in everything from cosmetics, shinier car wax, stronger tennis rackets and golf balls that fly farther, to the speedy hard-drive in your computer. The global nano technology market tops $50 billion a year and is estimated to exceed $1 trillion by 2015.

Nanoparticles tend to be more chemically reactive because they have hugely more surface area, the same way crushed ice cools your drink more quickly than cubed ice. In catalysts (a substance which accelerates chemical reactions) such as OxiTitan, the reaction is intensified even further.

Nanotechnology is making a significant impact on electronics, biotechnology, and consumer products. We are proud to be among those helping to responsibly improve our world through the advanced materials science of OxiTitan Antimicrobial Coatings.