to many problems in agricultural, food processing, renewable energy, and healthcare sectors and removes many existing jobs through improved and automated technology used in manufacturing and service sectors which contribute to loss of manufacturing and agricultural jobs. Such mass loss of jobs in primary and secondary sectors creates social inequalities. NT will enable micro supercomputers on a very small scale, detection of minute amounts of substances, rapid analysis of genomes, and implantation of microchips into humans may lead to a darker side of violation of privacy. Though NT supports surveillance using nano‐sensors extremely small cameras, people be afraid of the security and privacy of individuals by tracking their location and their instantaneous behavior. Such a negative perception of NT in society may result in questionable marketing decisions and hindrance in the speed of technology acceptance.
3.7.4 Economic Risks
NT supports huge agricultural production, artificial food at low cost, renewable energy for everyone, low‐cost shelter, long life automobiles, low‐cost healthcare services, and these innovations in the society leads to economic market crashes due to potential lower demand to oil and gas resources as well as due to crashed market for precious metals like silver, gold, or diamonds, etc. due to artificial reproduction of such things using molecular manipulation techniques. All this leads to crash of economic market and hence many industry performances.
3.7.5 Predictive Green Goo
Another potential danger predicted recently due to NT advances is that with time progress with NT advancement, a stage may reach where nanobots will become commonplace in society, and with artificial intelligence technology, these nanobots may develop their own intelligence and replicate in an uncontrolled manner such a way that one day the earth may overrun by these nanobots. This hypothetical situation is called a gray goo effect. Alternatively, one day, there is a risk on the entire planet that may be overrun by nanoengineered organisms called green goo.
The above NT risks are in turn hindering the progress and investment of financial resources on NT research by many countries' governments.
3.8 How Nanotechnology Can Be Made Green and Eco‐Friendly
Ideally, nanomaterial development should be incorporate a safety‐by‐design approach, as there is a marketing edge for nano‐enabled products with a reduced potential impact on health and the environment. Such GNT solutions play a major role in realizing SDG and eliminate the threat of the technification of development processes. GT is an environmental healing technology that reduces environmental damages created by the products and technologies for peoples' conveniences. It is believed that GT promises to augment farm profitability while reducing environmental degradation and conserving natural resources GTs are sustainable technologies which will not create footprint when used for various processes/applications [92]. GTs support the use of natural organic resources and avoid the production of green gasses. They also consume less resources and do not support to increase the entropy of the universe. GTs do not support any kind of environmental degradation. They support the automation of every process and hence avoid human intervention. Since they do not support environmental degradation and contribute to creating the footprint, they are sustainable, improve the lifestyle of the people, and contribute to human comfortability. The major technologies used in the present day like aircraft technology, automobile technology, biotechnology, computer technology, telecommunication technology, education technology, internet technology, renewable energy technology, atomic and nuclear technology, NT, space technology, etc. can be made green using the principle of GT [93–102]. NT predicted as to be pioneering technology of the twenty‐first century, if modified as a GT, will be accepted by every user and play an important role in solving problems of society at both basic and advanced levels. The objectives of GNT in some of the basic and advanced fields of society are listed in Table 3.4.
There are many green synthesis protocols which use green chemistry principles for the preparation of nanoparticles and hence nanomaterials compared to conventional methods [103, 104]. This include
1 Nonhazardous naturally occurring materials to use as starting material using bottom‐up approach.
2 Recyclability and reuse of magnetic nanoparticles in nano‐catalysis applications.
3 Metal nanoparticles can be prepared using natural anti‐oxidant agents like polyphenols from Tea or wine or agricultural residues.
4 Nanoparticles prepared using mild reaction conditions in the facile synthesis display reduced toxicity and are suitable for environmental remediation applications.
5 Metal nanoparticles with antibacterial activities can be synthesized using biogenetic reduction by plants using reducing agents involved include various water‐soluble metabolite compounds.
6 Silver and gold nanoparticles which have applications in many industries are prepared using plant‐based green chemistry preparation principles.
7 Many crystalline inorganic compounds are prepared using bottom‐up low‐temperature methods such as hydro/solvothermal synthesis, template‐assisted approaches, nucleation, and growth in solution/suspension, microemulsion, miniemulsion, etc.
8 Microbial synthesis of nanoparticles using bacteria, fungi, and viruses; phototrophic eukaryotes, including plants, diatoms, and algae; heterotrophic human cell lines and some other biological agents fall under green synthesis of nanoparticles as eco‐friendly, cost‐effective, and simple approaches.
9 Microwave‐assisted organic synthesis methods are used to prepare metal nanoparticles.
Hence, nanostructures and nanocomposites of metals and metal oxides like, Au, Ag, Al, Eu, Co, Pd, Pt, Fe, C60, CdS, ZnO, Bi2O3, TiO2, NiFe2O4, etc. are prepared using bottom‐up methods like sol–gel method or chemical reduction methods using natural sources like plants, fungi, etc. These green chemistry preparation processes of nanomaterials and nanostructures boost the GNT movement and give confidence to industries to promote NT‐based products and services.
Table 3.4 Objectives of green nanotechnology in various areas of society.
| S. No. | Area | Objectives of green nanotechnology |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Agriculture | To avoid environmental degradation in nanotechnology supported agricultural processes including pest control |
| 2 | Food processing | To eliminate poisonous contents in food and to avoid green gas emission and environmental degradation in all food packaging processes which are supported by green nanotechnology |
| 3 | Potable water | To develop large scale filters for water purification and seawater desalination through green nanotechnological processes without environmental degradation |
| 4 | Sustainable energy | To develop green nanotechnological processes for harvesting potential natural energy sources to generate required energy for human civilization without degrading environment |
| 5 | Consumer products |
To produce a variety of new generation
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