1. Terminology and production

To define the concept of nanoparticles, we will use the terminology defined by the ISO, published at the end of September 2008, namely :

• the nanometric definition considers the dimensional range between 1 and 100 nm ;

• nano-objects are materials with one, two or three external dimensions in the nanometric range. Among these nano-objects, nanoparticles comprise their three dimensions in the nanometric range, nano-plates have one nanometric dimension, while nanofibers are nano-objects with two nanometric dimensions, the third dimension being significantly longer.