Nanoparticle based measurement platforms and advanced materials

该计划旨在利用纳米科学和纳米材料的独特性质来开发新的分析测量平台。该方案的长期目标是为环境和医疗应用以及大麻工业建立基于纳米材料的传感平台。将在材料合成和生物测试设计领域开展一系列项目。我们项目的核心是一种从植物中提取的绿色纳米材料。纳米纤维素材料可以从木浆中生产出来，它们的应用可以振兴林业产业。 这里提出的所有测量策略都将利用贵金属纳米颗粒依赖于尺寸的光学性质。这些纳米颗粒将附着在纳米纤维素材料上，以便在水中保持整个结构。产生的等离子体材料将被整合到基于拉曼光谱的检测平台中，特别是表面增强拉曼散射(SERS)。 表面增强拉曼散射需要纳米金属结构，这种结构通常附着在固体表面上。对可分散在水溶液中的SERS底物的探索还不太广泛。水分散基质提供了更好的重现性和更快的分析时间，因为溶液的均质性和分析物向纳米颗粒的三维扩散。我们将专注于合成等离子体纳米纤维素材料，作为溶液SERS衬底的应用。利用纳米纤维素作为金属纳米颗粒的载体，我们将开发一种可水分散的SERS衬底，其重复性取决于溶液的均质性。具体地说，纤维素纳米纤维(CNF)和纤维素纳米晶(Cnc)将用银和金纳米颗粒装饰。我们的假设是，用金属纳米颗粒均匀装饰的CNF将提供一个相互接近的纳米颗粒网络。我们将通过纳米纤维的尺寸和覆盖度来优化纳米粒子的沉积，以控制SERS增强。我们将根据CNF的表面官能化和反应条件以及它们相应的SERS信号来表征这种底物。这种底物的目标是提供对水溶性污染物的灵敏和可重复的分析，并与手持拉曼探头相结合，为环境、医疗和大麻监测应用提供一个移动平台。

This program seeks to exploit nanoscience and the unique properties of nanomaterials to develop new analytical measurement platforms. The long-range goals of the program are the establishment of nanomaterial-based sensing platforms for environmental and medical applications as well as for the cannabis industry. A range of projects will be undertaken in the areas of materials synthesis and bioassay design. At the heart of our projects is a green nanomaterial derived from plants. Nanocellulose materials can be produced from wood pulp and their applications can revitalize the forestry industry. All measurement strategies proposed here will exploit the size-dependent optical properties of noble metal nanoparticles. These nanoparticles will be attached to the nanocellulose material in order to maintain the entire construct in water. The resultant plasmonic materials will be incorporated into a detection platform based on Raman spectroscopy, specifically, surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The surface enhancement in SERS requires nanosized metal structures that are generally attached to deposited on a solid surface. The exploration of SERS substrates that are dispersible in aqueous solutions has been less widespread. A water dispersible substrate offers better reproducibility and faster analysis time because of solution homogeneity and three-dimensional diffusion of the analyte to the nanoparticle. We will focus on the synthesis of plasmonic nanocellulose cellulose materials for applications as solution-based SERS substrates. With nanocellulose acting as a support for metal nanoparticles, we will develop a water dispersible SERS substrate where the reproducibility is dependent on solution homogeneity. Specifically, cellulose nanofibers (CNF) and cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) will decorated with silver and gold nanoparticles. Our hypothesis is that CNF uniformly decorated with metal nanoparticles will provide a network of nanoparticles in close proximity to each other. We will optimize the nanoparticle deposition via size and coverage on the nanofibers to control the SERS enhancement. We will characterize this substrate in terms of CNF surface functionalization and reaction conditions along with their corresponding SERS signal. This substrate will be targeted at providing sensitive and reproducible analysis of water-soluble contaminants and combined with a hand-held Raman probe to provide a mobile platform for environmental, medical and cannabis monitoring applications.