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.