The continual increase in innovative applications for nanomaterials has been accompanied by
concerns about their potential health and environmental impacts due to their unique, and
somewhat unpredictable, properties. Nanotechnology is a rapidly evolving science of
understanding and controlling matter that is having a profound impact on many different
fields due to its interdisciplinary character and by offering new opportunities at the nanodimension
(1,000 times smaller than a human hair). It is bringing about new perspectives on
the chemical, environmental, biomedical, electronics, automotive and aerospace industries at
the nano-scale that have unique surface, catalytic and magnetic properties that were once
considered impossible.