Hydrothermal from – Geology to Nanotechnology and Nanogeoscience (Part - II)

Abstract

Hydrothermal process from a pure geologic science has now become one of the fast-emerging processing technologies to synthesize nanomaterials in the laboratory. Today it is an advanced technological tool, which facilitates to obtain nanomaterials and nanoparticles with desired size, shape, quality and functionality. In fact, hydrothermal technique has its bearing on the nature-inspired or geo-mimetic processes that are being employed extensively in the laboratory. The natural hydrothermal processes are acting ever since earth came into existence, and leading to the formation of a large variety of minerals, rocks and ores. Earth is a blue planet of the universe, where water is a major component which plays an important role in the formation of geological materials and hydrothermal circulation has always assisted by bacteria, photochemical and other related activities. The synthesis of advanced technological materials often occurs in the presence of biomolecules, proteins, organic ligands, DNA and amino acids. An understanding of nanogeoscience is becoming very relevant in the current context and is crossing into almost all the branches of geology including palaeoecology, mineralogy, environmental geology, energy geology, geochemistry, etc. Similarly, the hydrothermal processes in nature cover several branches of geology whether it is the origin of ores, minerals, rocks, but also life on the earth. In the present review, the authors discuss all the above aspects in detail with a future perspective of the field. Also, the authors have described the evolution of hydrothermal process from pure geology to the nanotechnology, nanogeoscience, nano-geopolymers, etc., with specific examples and depicted its relevance to the geologic science.