Nanoparticle based measurement platforms and advanced materials

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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.