Nano Engineering Concepts, Principles and Applications in Food Technology

Nanobiosensor technology is a powerful technology that fulfills the requirement of specificity and sensitivity. It is an important prerequisite for agriculture, health care, food processing, and packaging. Highly miniature sensors have been designed and achieved based on nanotechnology. Nanobiotechnology is an interdisciplinary invention of nanosciences (Materials, Electronics, Mechanics, Computers, and Biology) to create biosensors with highly reliable detecting competence. Nanobiosensors are nanosensors with immobilized bio-receptor analyses that are selective for target analyte particles. Being in the nanoscale, the data are sensed, processed, and analyzed at an atomic scale. Their applications consist of the recognition of organic analytes like microorganisms/ pathogens and pesticides and observing metabolites. They can also be used to facilitate molecular analysis by integrating with other technologies, such as lab-on-a-chip. Nanobiotechnology is a newly explored research area that gears up real bioanalytical applications. This chapter is a journey of philosophy, understanding and setting a pattern for using nanotechnology in agriculture. This episode is a presentation of the essence of nanomaterials and their applications of nanomaterials for agriculture. The significance and importance of nanomaterials in the food industry are added.

Keywords: Agriculture, Bio-Nano sensor, Characterizing tools, Electronic Nose, Food Processing, Nanomaterial.