The Iron Throne for Nanoparticles

As I started this week’s blog, I decided a needed a better hook for the title. Last week I went with “Iron it Out” because I was working in the lab assisting in creating Iron Oxide nanoparticles. Iron oxide, iron nanoparticles, Iron it Out. Get it? Nobody said anything about my title. I got no likes on the blog, my Facebook page, my twitter, my Instagram account, not even on my Myspace page. Then I realized, I have no social media presence. No wonder! So I figured maybe I needed a better hook. So what better cultural reference than the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones. So now that I have come up with a correlation/metaphor between the nanoparticles my group is working with and the characters of Game of Thrones.

Obviously the Iron Throne would be seized by the most powerful nanoparticle in the process of removing arsenic from water. So how will the battle for the nanoparticle be won? Will there be a “Red Wedding” where one nanoparticle is deceived by others at a moment of joy only to be slaughtered? Which nanoparticle will be like Cersei Lannister? Who will be the mother of dragons? Which particle will be the John Snow nanoparticle? Will the John Snow nanoparticle become romantically involved with the Daenerys Targaryen nanoparticle  in a relationship that is denounced by all the nanoparticles except for the Jaime and Cersei nanoparticles who say “What’s the big deal?” Let’s find out.

In comparing the three nanoparticles my mentor is working with, I needed to understand how these particles are evaluated in their ability to remove arsenic from drinking water. Is one better than the others. Unfortunately, this research has yet to be done at the lab here. It was however identified by my mentor as “future work” to be done on her poster presentation of her research. So maybe that will be something I can assist with.

This spring, at UTEP Mariana Marcos and Roy Arrieta did an experiment where they tested the adsorption rates of the composite materials in adsorbing arsenic from simulated drinking water. They varied the amount of composite material with 10 different trial masses. The simulated drinking water had a concentration of 5 ppb of arsenic.

The experiment yielded adsorption data of arsenic adsorption by a composite material made of Iron Oxide, Graphene, and Zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF). They did not have individual arsenic adsorption data of Graphene, iron oxide or ZIF to compare. Thus my Game of Thrones analogy is not relevant regarding the ability of these three nanomaterials to absorb arsenic. Their research does indicate that the composite that used the Zinc ZIF had a higher adsorption rate that the two other composites which used a cobalt ZIF and a zinc/cobalt ZIF respectively.

The image below is a TEM image of the three nanomaterials together.  In the lower right half of the image you can see an almost transparent screen in the background. This is the graphene oxide. The darkest parts of the image are areas where all three materials are coalesced together.

Follow up from Last Week

Last week I assisted Mariana in synthesizing Iron Oxide particles by reducing the mass of the reactants from their usual recipe to create iron oxide. The purpose was to get less aggregation so that the nanoparticles could be easily characterized.  It is easier to measure the size of the nanoparticles if they are less aggregated. The image below shows the particles we created last week as seen through a TEM with a 50 nanometer scale.

Mariana is working with Dr. Ping at Rice by creating these iron oxide nanomaterials for him to use in his research in creating phages that will be conjugated with superparamagnetic nanoparticles. According to Mariana, he needs various sizes of nanoparticles of iron oxide ranging from 5 to 100 nanometers.