Nanoparticles: Size of Nanoparticles

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Nanoparticles can be defined as objects ranging in size from 1- 100 nm that due to their size may differ from the bulk material.

In the International System of Units, the prefix "nano" means one-billionth, or 10-9; therefore one nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. It’s difficult to imagine just how small that is, so here are some examples:
  • A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick
  • A strand of human DNA is 2.5 nanometers in diameter
  • There are 25,400,000 nanometers in one inch
  • A human hair is approximately 80,000- 100,000 nanometers wide
  • A single gold atom is about a third of a nanometer in diameter
  • On a comparative scale, if the diameter of a marble was one nanometer, then diameter of the Earth would be about one meter
  • One nanometer is about as long as your fingernail grows in one second

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  1. Image: http://www.nano.gov/nanotech-101/what/nano-size
  2. https://www.nano.gov/
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