January 13, 2020

“THE NANO WORLD”

What are the potential applications of Nanotechnology in the

Philippines?

Nanotechnology is helping to significantly improve and even revolutionize many sectors

of technology and industry: IT, Homeland Security, Medicine, Transportation, Energy, Food
Security, Environmental Science, and many more. A sampling of the rapidly increasing list of
applications of nanotechnology are as follows;

● Electronics and IT Applications - Nanotechnology has greatly

contributed to major advances in computing and electronics, leading to faster,
smaller, and more portable systems that can manage and store larger and larger
amounts of information
● Medical and Healthcare Applications - The medical devices, expertise,
and therapies currently available to clinicians are also being broadened by
nanotechnology. The use of nanotechnology in medicine, Nanomedicine, builds
on the natural scale of biological phenomena to create specific solutions for the
prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
● Energy Applications - is being applied to conventional energy sources and is
dramatically developing renewable energy methods to help meet the rising
energy demands of the world. Many scientists are researching ways to build
clean, inexpensive and sustainable sources of energy, along with means to
minimize energy use and reduce environmental toxicity burdens.

What are the possible health risks of Nanotechnology?

As negative impacts of nanotechnology, nanoparticles' toxicity depends on their surface

properties, coating, structure, scale, and aggregation ability. It can cause cancer if nanoparticles
have low solubility. This is because nanoparticles have a higher ratio of surface to volume,
increasing chemical and biological reactivity. Via several routes, the nanoparticles can enter the
body: dermally, by ingestion, inhalation, injection or implantation. When they are found in skin
care items, hair products or lip balms, including sunscreen and anti-wrinkle cream,
nanoparticles join dermally. In populations exposed to nanoparticles, several mechanisms have
been suggested to explain the adverse effects that may contribute to cardiopulmonary morbidity
and mortality. Nanoparticles can activate lung neurons that influence the central nervous
system and autonomic cardiovascular function.
What are the possible environmental risks of Nanotechnology?

It is difficult to draw conclusions about the environmental threats of particular

nanomaterials due to the variety of impact data and nanomaterials. There are still scarce models
that explain the release of non-particles, their distribution in the atmosphere and the exposure
of living organisms to them, and so are the models' validation results. Progress in the
development of analytical tools and techniques for evaluating and measuring nano-
characteristics in complex media is needed in order to gain insights into the existence and
exposure of nanomaterials. While most NMs have been extensively studied for decades in
research laboratories, it is very possible that the long-term consequences have been ignored or
that the experiments carried out to determine their potential toxicity are not adequate to draw a
conclusion.