PISMP 1 - ELP (PN NOREHAH JAMALUDDIN)

The Nanotechnology contributions in human life.

Science and technology are becoming more important and every nation is racing in the development of their technology for their own purposes. As a matter of fact, the technology which is becoming more sophisticated and the latest is the nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is a new phenomenon in technology that its application has contributed lots to human life now days.

‘Nano’ is taken from Greek word that lead us to its meaning that is, ‘small’. The term of ‘nanotechnology’ is coined by the Japanese Scientist, Professor Norio Tanaguchi(1974) . Nanotechnology cannot be seen with our eyes because it is hundred thousand times smaller than the size of human hair or the differentiation size of a moon and a ball. In today’s world, the laptops and mobile phones compact size is one sample of nanotechnology applications. However, making other gadgets into compact size is not the only application of nanotechnology. There are many more benefits that human do not realize what nanotechnology application has done to their life.

Firstly, Nanotechnology contribution is towards its application to solve the water problems. Not many of us realize that there are many people around the world that has problems with water. According to the World Bank document, water is a major issue that is shared by the whole world that becomes the main concerns the United Nation. The problems are to get access to clean water and to prevent the water-related diseases that can killed many people. However these water problems can be solved, by using the nanotechnology application that is a physical fiters with nanometer-scale pores which can remove 100% bacteria or dangerous viruses. In fact, these filters can recycle water from any source of any use and indirectly save a huge amounts of water and allow the presently unusable water resources to be consumed. It can also eliminate downstream pollution, this proves that the use of nanotechnology filters is effective.

Secondly, the nanotechnology applications also contribute in energy aspect, especially the solar energy. Nowadays, people use the burning of carbon-containing fuels as main power. But this source of energy is generally inefficient, non-renewable, and it emits carbon dioxide and other waste products into the atmosphere. The solar energy however, is totally different because, solar electricity generation depends on either photovoltaic conversion, or concentrating direct sunlight. It is an environmentally friendly of energy source. Before the use of the nanotechnology, it seems like solar energy cannot be a solution for future sources of energy because the solar energy is influenced by the weather and it need of direct sunlight constantly and if the day is cloudy so people will have to find other solutions to get energy from other sources for their daily purposes.

 However, using the nanotechnology application, these problems can be simply solved because firstly, the designs require not much material, and can be simply made and it is also easy to maintain. Secondly, the  sun-tracking process can be easier and no more labor use to track the sun. This is because of the invention of the sun-tracking designs which can benefit from cheap computers and compact actuators that leads to the efficiency of the stored energy. This solutions can also be implemented to anyone, in community or even the national scale. With the use of solar energy, the earth will not be contaminated by the pollution caused by waste products. This will make the environmentalist felt happy. This can only be achieved through the nanotechnology application.

The last and the biggest contributions of nanotechnology to the human is from the medical aspect. There are many researches by the scientists and the doctors in nanotechnology that helps the improvements in medical fields. The medical world is changing dramatically from the use of big surgical tools and equipment to the smallest medical tools in nano scale that can be auto running by itself and can be monitored with the computer. For example in certain cases of cancer, the chances of removing cancer cells are very risky and almost cannot be done because of the human body complexity, but the small nano robots that has been implanted in the patient body had been successful in destroying the infected cells totally and the process is not a painful experience for the patient. The nanotechnology also make the medicine not to be taken orally as it can also be used externally. Furthermore it is not impossible that, in the future, our neurology systems can be replaced by the nanorobots which can do similar function effectively.

In conclusion, all the problems solution above was just little part of nanotechnology applications that benefits human life. But there are still many contributions of nanotechnology that we have not explored. Even though, the development and the findings of nanotechnology so far have contributed a lot to human life and the environment.