In the last few decades, the vast potential of nanomaterials for biomedical and healthcare applications has been extensively investigated. Several case studies demonstrated that nanomaterials can offer solutions to the current challenges of raw materials in the biomedical and healthcare fields. This review describes the different nanoparticles and nanostructured material synthesis approaches and presents some emerging biomedical, healthcare, and agro-food applications. This review focuses on various nanomaterial types (e.g., spherical, nanorods, nanotubes, nanosheets, nanofibers, core-shell, and mesoporous) that can be synthesized from different raw materials and their emerging applications in bioimaging, biosensing, drug delivery, tissue engineering, antimicrobial, and agro-foods. Depending on their morphology (e.g., size, aspect ratio, geometry, porosity), nanomaterials can be used as formulation modifiers, moisturizers, nanofillers, additives, membranes, and films. As toxicological assessment depends on sizes and morphologies, stringent regulation is needed from the testing of efficient nanomaterials dosages. The challenges and perspectives for an industrial breakthrough of nanomaterials are related to the optimization of production and processing conditions.

Nanomaterials are materials with one or more nanoscale dimensions (internal or external) (i.e., 1 to 100 nm). The nanomaterial shape, size, porosity, surface chemistry, and composition are controlled at the nanoscale, and this offers interesting properties compared with bulk materials. This review describes how nanomaterials are classified, their fabrication, functionalization techniques, and growth-controlled mechanisms. First, the history of nanomaterials is summarized and then the different classification methods, based on their dimensionality (0–3D), composition (carbon, inorganic, organic, and hybrids), origin (natural, incidental, engineered, bioinspired), crystal phase (single phase, multiphase), and dispersion state (dispersed or aggregated), are presented. Then, the synthesis methods are discussed and classified in function of the starting material (bottom-up and top-down), reaction phase (gas, plasma, liquid, and solid), and nature of the dispersing forces (mechanical, physical, chemical, physicochemical, and biological). Finally, the challenges in synthesizing nanomaterials for research and commercial use are highlighted.

Carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) have received tremendous interest in the area of nanotechnology due to their unique properties and flexible dimensional structure. CNMs have excellent electrical, thermal, and optical properties that make them promising materials for drug delivery, bioimaging, biosensing, and tissue engineering applications. Currently, there are many types of CNMs, such as quantum dots, nanotubes, nanosheets, and nanoribbons; and there are many others in development that promise exciting applications in the future. The surface functionalization of CNMs modifies their chemical and physical properties, which enhances their drug loading/release capacity, their ability to target drug delivery to specific sites, and their dispersibility and suitability in biological systems. Thus, CNMs have been effectively used in different biomedical systems. This review explores the unique physical, chemical, and biological properties that allow CNMs to improve on the state of the art materials currently used in different biomedical applications. The discussion also embraces the emerging biomedical applications of CNMs, including targeted drug delivery, medical implants, tissue engineering, wound healing, biosensing, bioimaging, vaccination, and photodynamic therapy.