Project 6: Nanomaterial Design for Environmental Health and Safety

新型纳米材料有望成为下一代环境保护的有利组成部分 技术，但也可能通过意外接触造成健康风险。项目6用途 纳米合成的现代方法，创造，表征和制定新材料的研究， 它们对环境健康和安全的影响和应用。 在最初的资助期间，创建了一个纳米材料和纳米结构材料吸附剂小组 并评价气相汞的捕获。臭氧处理的碳和纳米级的银，铜，镍，硫，和 硒显示出比相同材料的常规形式具有高得多的吸附能力， 一种纳米吸附剂制剂（不稳定的无定形纳米硒）的活性比 任何目前市售的吸附剂。更新将调查的详细机制， 汞/纳米材料反应，重点是创造水相除汞的新技术 与项目5和新技术合作， 在处理、使用或报废处理过程中损坏的灯。 在纳米技术影响领域，开发了量化金属生物利用度的技术 并确定疏水表面积在碳纳米管毒性中的作用。研究还 进行了更安全的纳米材料配方，包括新的净化协议，解毒纳米管 通过有针对性地去除生物可利用的金属，使纳米管功能化以抑制叶酸吸附， 以及TPGS作为“绿色”水溶液的新型抗氧化表面活性剂的用途。 nanotube加工，所有这些都与Project 2密切合作。 在下一个资助期，我们假设对纳米级镍，氧化镍， 铬酸盐和含Ni/Y的碳纳米管将取决于尺寸、表面状态和具体配方。 替代制剂将通过退火、氧化、纯化和共价和非共价修饰来制备。 表面改性，材料的行为将在复杂的生物和 环境流体相模拟物。项目2、4和6的共同目标是理解材料， 通过反复的纳米材料配方和生物学测试确定纳米毒性的分子基础。是 预计这种迭代和协作过程将导致纳米材料结构/活性关系 和安全纳米材料设计的一般规则。

New nanomaterials offer promise as enabling components in next-generation environmental technologies, but may also pose health risks of their own through unintended exposure. Project 6 uses modern methods of nanosynthesis to create, characterize, and formulate new materials for study of both their implications and applications to environmental health and safety. In the initial funding period, a panel of nanomaterial and nanostructured material sorbents was created and evaluated for capture of vapor phase mercury. Ozone-treated carbon and nanoscale Ag, Cu, Ni, S, and Se were shown to have much higher adsorption capacities than conventional versions of the same materials, and one nanosorbent formulation (unstabilized, amorphous nano-selenium) had fifty-fold higher activity than any sorbent commercially available today. The renewal will investigate the detailed mechanisms of Hg/nanomaterial reactions with emphasis on creating new technologies for aqueous-phase mercury removal in collaboration with Project 5 and new technologies for managing the mercury released from fluorescent lamps that break during handling, use, or end-of-life disposal. In the area of nanotechnology implications, techniques were developed to quantify metal bioavailability and identify the role of hydrophobic surface area in the toxicity of carbon nanotubes. Research was also carried out on safer nanomaterial formulations including new purification protocols that detoxify nanotubes through targeted removal of bioavailable metal, functionalization of nanotubes to suppress folate adsorption that inhibits cell proliferation, and the use of TPGS as a new anti-oxidant surfactant for "green" aqueous nanotube processing, all in close collaboration with Project 2. In the next funding period, we hypothesize that the biological response to nanoscale nickel, nickel oxide, chromate, and Ni/Y-containing carbon nanotubes will depend on size, surface state, and specific formulation. Alternative formulations will be prepared through annealing, oxidation, purification, and covalent and noncovalent surface modification, and the behavior of the materials will be studied in complex biological and environmental fluid phase simulants. A joint goal of Projects 2, 4, and 6 is to understand the materials and molecular bases for nanotoxicity through iterative nanomaterial formulation and biological testing. It is anticipated that this iterative and collaborative process will lead to nanomaterial structure/activity relations and general rules for safe nanomaterial design.