(555e) Bimetallic Nanoparticles for Water Purification

Bimetallic nanoparticles are of interest for water purification due to their versatility in contaminant adsorption and degradation.  Studies have now demonstrated that metallic nanoparticles can be used to transform and remove a variety of contaminant types, including heavy metals, organic chemicals, pharmaceutical compounds, and pesticides.  Many of these studies now use wet chemistry, either with an organic solvent or with water, to synthesize these nanoparticles, where an organic stabilizer is often used during synthesis to control nanoparticle size and prevent agglomeration.  However, little has been done to understand why certain stabilizers work better than others with certain metals to produce specific particle sizes and controlled particle size distributions.  Furthermore, there has been no systematic study of specific stabilizer properties that might affect nanoparticle synthesis and reactivity.  These properties, such as stabilizer size, chelation ability, and the presence of specific functional groups, are likely to affect nanoparticle growth and agglomeration; the surface properties of the nanoparticles themselves (e.g., surface charge and hydrophilicity) will affect the stabilizer-metal association as the nanoparticles are synthesized.  In this study, we begin to understand how specific properties of organic stabilizers affect metallic nanoparticle synthesis and reactivity; the properties of molecular weight and chelation strength will be discussed for several stabilizer molecules.