ABSTRACT
Chapter 9 focuses on nanoparticles and biointerface. Nanotechnology has emerged as a new branch of science that has broad applications in many fields such as energy production, industrial production processes, biomedical applications, and so on. A wide range of nanomaterials, especially nanoparticles, are developed with unique and desirable compositions and properties allowing them to be used in novel techniques (Luo et al. 2005; Wang and Wang 2014). Nanoparticles are considered as ultradispersed solid supramolecular structures with at least one dimension less than 1 µm, which are generally obtained as nanospheres (matrix-types) or nanocapsules (reservoir types) by various methods of preparations (Couvreur 2013). It has been found that nanoparticles exhibit some of the unique properties as compared to bulk materials. The small size and increased surface area of nanoparticles offered unique physical, chemical, electrical, and optical properties that can be utilized for developing the enhanced sensing devices (Luo et al. 2006). Nanoparticles can either be from a natural origin or manufactured synthetically. Some of the naturally based nanoparticles are proteins, polysaccharides, viruses, iron oxyhydroxides, aluminosilicates, metals, and so on, and they are produced by the processes such as weathering, volcanic eruptions, wildfires, or microbial processes (Heiligtag and Niederberger 2013).
