Environmental Benefits

With any emerging technology, impacts on our environment need to be considered prior to market development and use. This entry reviews the environmental benefits of nanotechnology in several key areas and within the context of global sustainability. Manipulating matter at the nanoscale for use in processes or products has potential for environmental benefits. These benefits are both direct, by contributing to solutions to environmental challenges, and indirect, by greening the manufacturing process, which gives us the ability to create more sustainable products that do less harm to human health and the environment. With the combination of the ability to construct nanomaterials from the bottom up (using less bulk material) and novel properties at the nanoscale (such as increased reactivity and greater strength using less material), nanoproducts could play an important role promoting sustainability in many ways.

The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies 2007 report, Green Nanotechnology: It's Easier Than You Think, identifies four main categories for environmental benefits of nanotechnology: (1) using nanotechnology to create green products and processes; (2) management for manufacture and use of nanotechnology to minimize environmental as well as human health risks; (3) using nanotechnology for cleanup of toxic waste and other pollutants; and (4) replacement of existing products with greener nanoproducts. In addition to direct environmental benefits, nanotechnology also has potential to increase security and human health, which positively affect the environment as well.