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This self-confessed introduction provides technical administrators and managers with a broad, practical overview of the subject and gives researchers working in different areas an appreciation of developments in nanotechnology outside their own fields of expertise.
The National Nanotechnology Initiative has motivated substantial growth in nanoscience and nanotechnology research in the United States and beyond. One of the central goals of the National Nanotechnology Initiative is the development and education of future generations of nanoscience researchers. This Nano Focus provides a brief history of nanoscience education, including curricula that have been implemented successfully into secondary and college institutions, as described in the symposium “Integrating Nanoscience into the College and High School Classroom” at the 237th American Chemical Society National Meeting in March 2009.
Copyright:
Reprinted by Permission, Copyright 2012 American Chemical Society
A small mechanical device, the atomic force microscope, measuring a force and the distance over which this force is applied, can be used on a single polysaccharide molecule to obtain the Gibbs energy of a conformational change within the polysaccharide. This well-defined conformational change within certain types of polysaccharide molecules is analogous to a chemical reaction with an equilibrium constant, Gibbs energy, enthalpy, and entropy applying to the individual molecule. Normally these thermodynamic properties for a substance would be obtained by measuring a heat of reaction and heat capacity and the measurements would be done on a large collection of molecules. It is now possible, with the new tools of nanotechnology, to do this measurement mechanically and on just one molecule. Single-molecule stretching is a fundamentally different way of measuring thermodynamic properties that links, in a simple and remarkable way, the physics of springs and forces with chemical reactions and equilibria. These concepts can be used in undergraduate physical chemistry courses to fascinate students about new ways of understanding physical chemistry and of measuring thermodynamic properties that arise from the techniques of nanotechnology.
Copyright:
Reprinted by Permission, Copyright 2009 American Chemical Society
