Nanotechnology limits pushed

China has made several breakthroughs in cutting-edge nanotechnology in the past five years that will have significant applications in electric vehicles, industrial printing and public health, scientists said on Wednesday.

Nanoscience is the study of materials on the scale of nanometers - a unit of measurement that is a billionth of a meter. At such a tiny scale, the properties of materials are often drastically different from those at larger sizes.

Materials that are brittle can become incredibly strong, and compounds that are chemically inert can become powerful catalysts. Manipulating these novel properties will lead to a wide range of products, from batteries to water filtration systems.