What may have once only existed in movie scripts, has now become a common word: nanotechnology. While the word is used more often than ever before, its meaning isn’t necessarily spelled out with its name. Nanotechnology is the branch of technology that deals with engineering and technology with dimensions and tolerances of less than 100 nanometers, such as the manipulation of individual atoms and molecules. For comparison, a sheet of newspaper is about 100,000 nanometers thick; a strand of DNA is 2.5 nanometers in diameter; the ratio of the Earth to a child’s marble is roughly the ratio of a meter to a nanometer.
Everything on Earth, from the clothes we wear and the food we eat to our homes and even our bodies, are made up of atoms. While atoms are impossible to see with the naked eye, it wasn’t long before science invented a way to see and control atoms and molecules: the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and the atomic force microscope (AFM); and thus the age of nanotechnology was born.
While still somewhat in its formative stage like the computer in the 90s, nanotechnology has continued to mature rapidly. Although nanoscale materials have been found in use as early as the 4th century, it wasn’t until the 20th century that nanotechnology developments were considered. Various discoveries and researchers pioneered the science of technology on microscopic levels, but it wasn’t until 1959 that technology and engineering were discussed publicly on the atomic scale (“There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” Richard Feynman).
By the 1990s, early nanotechnology companies began to operate. As investments by governments around the world soared from about $450 million to about $4 billion between 1997 and 2005, industry investments exceeded that of governments by 2005.
Since those investments, nanotechnology has continued to expand with scientists and engineers finding great success in making materials at the nano-scale. Through such work, scientists are discovering that atoms and molecules act differently at the nanoscale. Scientists have been able to take advantage of the enhanced properties of the materials, such as higher strength, lighter weight, increased electrical conductivity, and chemical reactivity compared to the larger-scale equivalents of those same materials.
What nanotechnology means to society is still uncertain. As new achievements are announced seemingly daily, it is clear that nanotechnology will shake things up. However, as for improving the state of the world large-scale, there is still more work to be done.
As nanotechnology is researched, understood, and utilized, state-of-the-art products will begin to emerge. Thus comes iDrink! One of the ways this technology has been utilized is through iDrink, a water beverage that is infused with vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes through the use of an advanced and innovative nanotechnology process. Helping to increase the health of people around the world, iDrink is one of the first products to utilize nanotechnology for the betterment of society.