Worldwide Scientific Research on Nanotechnology: A Bibliometric Analysis of Tendencies, Funding, and Challenges

The main objective of this investigation was to analyze the scientific production in global research on nanotechnology, integrating scientific production, funding of studies, collaborations between countries, and the most cited publications. The source for obtaining the research papers for our analysis was the Science Citation Index Expanded from the Web of Science. A total of 3546 documents were extracted during the period of 1997–2018. Food science & technology, chemistry (applied and analytical), spectroscopy, and agriculture appeared as the main areas where the articles were published. Most prolific and cited journals were Analytical Methods, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, and Food Chemistry. The co-word analysis showed the relationships between "nanoparticles", which is the central word, and "silver nanoparticles", "delivery systems", and "zinc-nanoparticles". The most productive countries were China (1089 papers), the United States (523), Iran (427), and India (359). The main cited topics deal with the biomedical applications of nanoparticles, its synthesis from plants, and its applications in food science. The results highlight an important collaboration between institutions and countries. The availability of funding for research in nanotechnology was remarkable compared to other fields. The multidisciplinarity of the nanotechnology field is one of the main features as well as one of the central findings.