The nanotechnological inventions of the recent time have an incredible potential, capable of providing us with really fantastic things. An amazing fact is that the nanotechnology did not exist until 1975, even though scientists had been working in this field much earlier. The human eye is able to recognize objects as large as 0.1 millimeters. Today we will talk about five inventions that work on the scale 100,000 times smaller.

1. 3D Chemical Printing

Just imagine a 3D printer capable of working with many different materials at once. Professor Martin Burke from the University of Illinois uses a collection of molecules of “building material” for a variety of purposes. He can already create a huge number of different chemicals, endowed with all sorts of amazing and at the same time natural properties. Don’t miss the opportunity to improve your knowledge of chemistry here: https://preply.com/en/skype/chemistry-tutors.

The capabilities of the current prototype of the 3D chemical printer are still limited. However, Martin Burke hopes that one day he will be able to create a consumer version of this amazing device, which will have much more possibilities. Maybe in the future, such printers will work as a kind of home pharmacists.
The potential of synthesizing substances is so huge that it will allow producing molecules for medical purposes, creating LED-diodes, solar batteries cells, and rare chemical elements that even the best chemists of the planet used to synthesize for years.

2. Glowing Clothing

Scientists from Shanghai have developed reflective Threads that can be used in the manufacture of clothing. The basis of each thread is a very thin stainless steel wire, which is coated with special nanoparticles, a layer of electroluminescent polymer, and also a protective shell of transparent nanotubes. As a result, these very light and flexible threads can shine under the influence of their own electrochemical energy. At the same time, they consume much less power than conventional light-emitting diodes.

The lack of technology lies in the fact that the “power reserve” of these threads is sufficient now for only a few hours. However, the developers of the material optimistically believe that they will be able to increase the “resource” of their product by at least a thousand times. Even if they succeed, the solution of another shortcoming is still under question. Washing clothes on the basis of such nano threads, most likely, will not be possible.
Whatever it is, scientists consider the use of such threads in biomedicine. As for washing, it will be quite possible to create clothes made of nano threads which are usually not so often washed, like signal jackets or baseball caps.

3. Artificial Retina

The future of artificial vision is so vivid that you cannot do without sunglasses or special nanofilms intended to simulate the retina of your eyes. Nano Retina, an Israeli company, develops an interface that will directly connect to the eye neurons and transmit the neural signals to the brain.

The experiment on the blind chicken showed a good result. The nanofilms allowed the hen to see the light. It is true that the final stage of developing an artificial retina is still far away, but the presence of progress in this direction is hopeful.

Nano Retina is not the only company that deals with such developments, but this technology at the moment is seen as the most promising, effective and adaptive. The last point is most important since we are talking about a product that will be integrated into human eyes. Similar developments have shown that solid materials are unsuitable for use in similar purposes. Since the technology is developed at the nano level, it allows to exclude the use of metal and wires, and also to avoid low resolution of the simulated picture.

4. Nano Battery Charger

When this device is developed, you no longer need to use any wired chargers. The new nanotechnology works like a sponge, but it absorbs not the liquid. It can accumulate the kinetic energy from the environment and direct it to your smartphone. The basis of the technology is the use of piezoelectric material, which generates electricity, being in a state of mechanical stress. The material is endowed with nanopores, which turn it into a flexible sponge.

This device is officially called “nanogenerator”. One day, such generators can become a part of every smartphone or the dashboard of each car. The gadgets can be charged right in the pocket. The researchers from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who created this amazing device, believe that this technology has also the potential for use at a larger scale, for example, in industrial production.

5. Nano Patches

In the very near future, you may no longer have to be afraid of needles. Researchers from the University of York are working on the creation of special patches, which will be designed to deliver all the necessary drugs inside the body without any needles and syringes being used. The project of developing Nano Patches is called NanJect. Nano patches will be stuck to the hand and deliver a certain dose of nanoparticles of the drug inside your body. Nanoparticles of less than 20 nanometers will find harmful cells, kill and remove them from the body along with other cells as a result of natural processes.

Scientists claim that such nano patches can be used in the future to combat one of the most terrible diseases on earth, cancer. Unlike chemotherapy, which often presents an integral part of the treatment, nano patches can individually find and destroy cancer cells and leave healthy cells intact at the same time.

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