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An Insight into Plant Nanobionics and Its Applications

  • Shubha Rani SharmaEmail author
  • Debasish Kar
Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Nanotechnology in the Life Sciences book series (NALIS)

Abstract

Nanobionics can be defined as the study of structure and function of biological systems as model for the design and engineering of materials and machines at nanoscale level. It can be better defined as biomimicry or biomimesis. The word biomimetics literally means any man-made processes, object, strategy, or systems that can replicate the natural phenomenon very wisely and accurately. The science that deals with designing and fabricating biomimetics gadgets is called biomimetics. Nanobionics finds immense applications in the research field of artificial intelligence, nanobiotechnology, and nanorobotics in addition to medicine and military purposes. The plant nanobionics is an emerging field of bioengineering which alters the functioning of the plant tissue or organelle by introducing nanoparticles into the cells and chloroplasts of living plants. The key idea in plant nanobionics is the endowment of supernatural powers to plant which once upon a time seemed to be some kind of fairy tale like using plant as a light source, etc. Plants are now being exploited for nanobionic purposes due to their exceptional capability to produce energy from sunlight and photosynthesis. Now the scientists of nanobiotechnology area are coming up with war footing to construct nanobionic plants with more efficient photosynthesizing capability and powerful sensors to sense nanolevel biochemicals in an area.

Keywords

Nanobionics Biomimesis Biosensors Photosynthetic efficiency Glowing plants Carbon nanotubes 
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© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Bio-EngineeringBirla Institute of Technology, MesraRanchiIndia
  2. 2.Department of BiotechnologyM. S. Ramaiah University of Applied SciencesBangaloreIndia

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