The nanoscale science and engineering conducted today has been defined as technology with a size range less than 100 nanometers or billionths of a meter. Using that definition only, most of chemistry would qualify.


The practitioners in the field would add that nanoscale science and engineering researches and exploits the unique properties of materials in the less than 100 nanometer size range. For example, depending on its specific configuration, carbon in that size range may exhibit extraordinary tensile strength greater than diamond, or act as an electrical conductor, insulator, or semiconductor.


This branch of nanotechnology exists today with many research programs throughout the world, and many companies commercializing their applications. These companies may sell purified nanotubes made of tubular lattices of carbon, soccer ball like polyhedra made of 60 atoms of carbon called Buckyballs, dendritic polymers called dendrimers, or other particles in the less than 100 nanometer size range. The applications of these technologies are numerous and significant. They enable fundamentally new types of pharmaceuticals, electronic memory and semiconductor devices, sensors, renewable energy capture and storage systems, water purification devices, super strong fabrics and materials, security and military components, as well as antipollution devices.


These applications are already beginning to emerge, and will gather momentum over the coming years.

The risks associated with passive compounds in the less than 100 nanometer size range concern their ability to be inhaled, absorbed through the skin, or to pass through biological compartment barriers such as the blood brain barrier. They thus pose a range of potential health and environmental risks that are associated with their potential toxicity or mutagencity in their interactions with biological systems. While the range of effects vary, most of the risks may be addressed by advanced industrial hygiene and environmental health practices and techniques that seek to characterize the specific risks, exposure patterns, and control methods and enforce them through a combination of practitioner education, industry self-regulation, monitoring and government regulation.


This is an important emerging field in the environmental and health sciences, since most of the existing legislation on environmental, safety, and health risks may cover particulates, but do not take the change in physical and biological properties at the nanoscale into account. It is reasonable to assume that passive nanoscale particle risks, although potentially serious if not addressed, will be characterized and addressed systematically under new versions or extensions to existing occupational, industrial hygiene, environmental, and medical regulations.