Nano Sponge For Oil Spills

Monday, June 02, 2008

A nanowire membrane that sops up oil while repelling water could be used for cleaning up oil spills.

By Prachi Patel-Predd

Credit: Francesco Stellacci, MIT, and Nature Nanotechnology

A thin membranes made from a web of nanowires might become a promising tool for cleaning up oil spills and removing toxic contaminants from groundwater. When dipped into a mixture of water and oil, the 50-micrometer-thick membrane absorbs the oil, swelling to 20 times its weight.

Typically, oil spills are cleaned up using the same basic technology used 20 years ago. This includes using absorbent materials to sop up traces of oil. Natural sorbents such as hay and cellulose can soak up between 3 and 15 times their weight in oil, while synthetic polymer-based sorbents can absorb up to 70 times their weight. But these materials tend to absorb water as well.

The new membrane absorbs oil and solvents and is superhydrophobic, which means it strongly repels water. "If you were to put it in water for a month and take it out it would still be dry," says Francesco Stellacci, the MIT Materials science and engineering professor who led the work, published online in Nature Nanotechnology. Stellaci says the material should not be too expensive to make in large quantities and can be easily reused many times, although the researchers haven't measured how many times yet.

Michael Rubner, an MIT materials science and engineering professor who was not involved in the project, says that the membrane's reusability is its most distinctive feature. Other hydrophobic structures have typically been made from organic materials. The inorganic nanowires can handle temperatures up to 600 degrees Celsius, where organic materials would degrade. "If the membrane becomes foul with oil or you have to remove the oil, ... [you] can basically cook it and clean it up and, in principle, use it over and over again," Rubner says.

The membrane is a mat of potassium manganese oxide nanowires, each about 20 nanometers wide. Stellacci and his colleagues assemble the mats using a method similar to one used to produce paper: they make a suspension of nanowires and dry it on a substrate. They have made membranes that are 27 centimeters on each side, but Stellacci says they could be made in larger mats.

Two important characteristics give the membrane its exceptional oil-absorbing and water-repelling properties. First, the nanowire mesh has tiny pores--10-nanometers wide on averagecapable of wicking water and other liquids up into the membrane. To keep water away, researchers coat the membrane with water-repelling silicone. The result: water rolls off the surface of the membrane while oil travels quickly up the pores. Stellacci and his colleagues tested the membrane with mixtures of different organic solvents and oils, including motor oil, gasoline and toluene.

The researchers also found that the membrane can separate nearly identical solvents; when dipped into a mixture of benzene and toluene, the membrane absorbs only the toluene. "That's pretty amazing, because they're quite similar molecules," says Joerg Lahann, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Michigan. This property could open up other applications, such as purifying or separating chemicals and solvents.

Researchers hope that the nanomembrane could reduce waste and lower the cost of cleaning oil spills from boats and in the petroleum industry. But Doug Helton, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says that it might be too early to say whether the nanomembrane might be practical in cleaning up large oil spills. The heating technique needed to clean the membrane might prove "a fairly onerous process," he says.

Plus, the membrane's oil-sopping capacity might diminish at a real spill. "Oil spills are pretty messy," Helton says. "There might be a lot of debris. That might reduce the efficiency of the sorbent." For now, Helton thinks the membrane could be good for removing water contaminants at factories or cleaning up smaller oil spills--in garages and machine shops.

Source

Nanobacteria – Are They Alive?

By Lisa Zyga

Calcium carbonate crystals (nanobacteria-like particles) have a cellular appearance, but the new study shows that nanobacteria are not alive. Image credit: Martel and Young. ©2008 PNAS.

Tiny particles called nanobacteria have intrigued researchers in many ways since their discovery 20 years ago, but perhaps the most controversial question they pose is whether or not they are alive.

Nanobacteria – which sometimes go by the name “nanobes” or “calcifying nanoparticles” – don’t seem to fit scientists’ criteria for life. Researchers at a workshop hosted by the National Academy of Sciences for this specific reason concluded that the minimal cellular size of life on Earth must exceed 200 nm in diameter in order to contain the cellular machinery based on DNA replication. But nanobacteria can be as small as 80 nm – so, unless they contain some novel replicating mechanism, it seems unlikely that they constitute a form of life.

That’s just one piece of evidence against living nanobacteria named in a recent study by Jan Martel of Chang Gung University in Taiwan and John Ding-E Young from The Rockefeller University in New York, which was published in PNAS. Martel and Young have studied healthy human blood serum that contains what they call “nanobacteria-like particles” (NLP), composed of the compound calcium carbonate (CaCO₃), or limestone. The researchers performed a series of experiments showing that the tiny particles contain no traces of DNA or RNA, and suggest that their formation can be explained by non-biological means.

“We believe that this study provides substantive proof that nanobacteria are not living entities,” Young told PhysOrg.com. “Some previous studies have hinted that this is the case, but have not provided a chemical composition or formulation that could explain the nanobacteria phenomenon in its entirety.”

One thing about nanobacteria that’s clear is that they’re very widespread, occurring in practically all human material tested. Under an electron microscope, nanobacteria (and the NLPs) look like typical bacteria, and even resemble cells undergoing division. They’re also hardy: when the researchers bombarded the NLPs with 30 kGy (kiloGray) of gamma radiation, it didn’t prevent them from growing in cultures, in accordance with previous studies.

Another bacteria-like property of NLPs is that they have the ability to nucleate hydroxyapatite (HAP), a calcium phosphate crystal that largely composes the bones and teeth of humans and animals. Previous research has suggested that this might be how the nanobacteria self-replicate. When Martel and Young investigated this issue in their study, however, they found that HAP only forms around NLPs under certain conditions. For example, when mixed with some crystal-growth-inhibiting proteins, NLPs stop nucleating HAP, indicating that HAP is not really necessary for NLP formation.

Instead, their experiments lead Martel and Young to suggest a chemical rather than biological model for NLP formation. Based on this hypothesis, they could control the speed and shape of NLP formation in vitro by simply varying the substrates needed for the precipitation of calcium carbonate.

These findings could also shed light on nanobacteria that have shown up in a variety of other areas, from sandstones of the Triassic and Jurassic eras to meteorite fragments from Mars. The chemical process that the researchers describe here for nanobacteria formation could be the same for these nanobacteria, as well.

“Nanobacteria have been heralded as the smallest cellular forms on Earth and as candidates to explain how cellular life began on Earth and other extraterrestial bodies, like meteorites and Mars,” Young said. “Our results clearly disprove that nanobacteria are living organisms. We have shown that all the previous vast body of literature in nanobacteria can actually be explained by a chemical and abiotic mechanism involving the simple deposition of limestone or calcium carbonate.”

Nano-pathogens?

Previous research has suggested that nanobacteria could be the cause of a wide variety of diseases, from kidney stones to atherosclerosis – a prospect which now must be tested with the new nanoparticles. Because they multiply faster in low-gravity environments, NASA is particularly concerned in light of astronauts’ increased risk for developing kidney stones. According to Martel and Young, these nanoparticles may be part of a much wider family of organic mineral complexes that seem to assemble and propagate as if they are alive – in fact, much like prions, the self-assembled proteins that cause mad cow disease.

“We believe that we have uncovered a whole family of organic mineral complexes that give the seeming appearance of replication and self-assembly as if they are live entities,” Young said. “They appear to be ubiquitous entities found in living and non-living substrates.”

Some researchers have even been developing antibodies to try to combat the “pathogenic” nanobacteria. A company called Nanobac Oy, owned by Nanobac Life Sciences and founded by the discoverers of nanobacteria, has antibodies that are commercially available and sells diagnostic kits for detecting the nanobacteria. The antibodies come from mice cells that have been immunized with nanobacteria obtained from cows.

To try to understand the nature of the reaction between the antibodies and nanobacteria, Martel and Young tested the antibodies on NLPs, which gave positive reaction, as expected. Surprisingly, however, the same antibodies also reacted with albumin, the most common protein in the blood serum. Since proteins like albumin can not possibly have been produced by any living bacteria, they’re probably attached to the calcium carbonate particles, and reacting with the antibodies, the researchers explain.

“Since nanobacteria have now been disproved as living entities, it is unlikely that they can produce diseases as bacteria would,” Young added. “Their common distribution in living and non-living environments – from blood to soil to meteorites – must be taken into account when speculating a role for them in disease. This is not to say that such nanoparticles are incapable of causing disease – with which they may very well be involved – but any such claims must be rigorously established through verifiable documentation, which is lacking at the present moment.”

More information: Martel, Jan, and Ding-E Young, John. “Purported nanobacteria in human blood as calcium carbonate nanoparticles.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. April 8, 2008. vol. 105, no. 14, 5549-5554.

Source

Polluting nanoparticles and CNPs - Questions

Study shows how ultrafine particles in air pollution may cause heart disease

Link

Nice post. I wonder if this finding hurts the claims of Nanobac?
The questions that come to mind are:
Does Nanobac need to prove that the CNP we are studying are alive?
Doesn't the claim you referenced seem to contradict that the plaque buildup in the arteries is primarily the CNPs which we believe are our living little creatures?
Does our IP cover the possible eradication processes if the nanoparticles are pollution based and not alive as we believe?
Many questions but you seem to be of better overall understanding than I so any answer or opinion would be appreciated. Thanks C

Link

It IS surprisingly similar!!

Nanoparticles from this recent study seem to cause problems. Are calcifying nanoparticles involved? They do not say the are not - perhaps they have never heard of CNPs!! It would be prudent, IMO, to get both research groups together to analyze ALL their findings and determine EXACTLY what is going on to cause this disease process.

Link

Human-derived nanoparticles and vascular response to injury in rabbit carotid arteries: Proof of principle

International Journal of Nanomedicine

Human-derived nanoparticles and vascular response to injury in rabbit carotid arteries: Proof of principle

Maria A K Schwartz1, John C Lieske2, Vivek Kumar2, Gerard Farell-Baril2, Virginia M Miller1,3

1Departments of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Internal Medicine; 2Division of Nephrology, and 3Surgery, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN, USA

Abstract: Self-calcifying, self-replicating nanoparticles have been isolated from calcified human tissues. However, it is unclear if these nanoparticles participate in disease processes. Therefore, this study was designed to preliminarily test the hypothesis that human-derived nanoparticles are causal to arterial disease processes. One carotid artery of 3 kg male rabbits was denuded of endothelium; the contralateral artery remained unoperated as a control. Each rabbit was injected intravenously with either saline, calcified, or decalcified nanoparticles cultured from calcified human arteries or kidney stones. After 35 days, both injured and control arteries were removed for histological examination. Injured arteries from rabbits injected with saline showed minimal, eccentric intimal hyperplasia. Injured arteries from rabbits injected with calcified kidney stone- and arterial-derived nanoparticles occluded, sometimes with canalization. The calcified kidney stone-derived nanoparticles caused calcifications within the occlusion. Responses to injury in rabbits injected with decalcified kidney stone-derived nanoparticles were similar to those observed in saline-injected animals. However, decalcified arterial-derived nanoparticles produced intimal hyperplasia that varied from moderate to occlusion with canalization and calcification. This study offers the first evidence that there may be a causal relationship between human-derived nanoparticles and response to injury including calcification in arteries with damaged endothelium.

Keywords: arterial calcification, endothelial injury, intimal hyperplasia

Download this Article for Free
2104 OLE-IJN-OA-2008-Schwartz.pdf
http://dovepress.com/getfile.php?fileID=2104

http://dovepress.com/articles.php?content_id=2231

Fireballs/Ball Lightning/Nanoparticles/Microwaves/Radio waves

February 18, 2008

By Miranda Marquit

"People have been pondering ball lightning for a couple of centuries,"
says James Brian Mitchell, a scientist the University of Rennes in
France. Mitchell says that different theories of how it forms, and why
it burns in air, have been considered, but until now there were no
experimental indications of what might be happening as part of the
ball lightning phenomenon.

Now, working with fellow Rennes scientist LeGarrec, as well as
Dikhtyar and Jerby from Tel Aviv University and Sztucki and Narayanan
at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France,
Mitchell can prove that nanoparticles likely exist in ball lightning.
The results of the work by Mitchell and his colleagues can be found in
Physical Review Letters: "Evidence for Nanoparticles in Microwave-
Generated Fireballs Observed by Synchrotron X-Ray Scattering."

"A group in New Zealand came up with this idea of 'dusty plasma,'"
Mitchell tells PhysOrg.com. "They thought that nanoparticles burning
in air could cause ball lightning to remain for seconds, rather than
disappearing after milliseconds. This was an attractive model." But
the model couldn't be proved without detecting the nanoparticles.

Mitchell says that he saw a paper by Jerby describing the creation of
a fireball in controlled conditions. "These fireballs floated in air,"
Mitchell explains. "They resemble ball lightning." This provided an
opportunity to study whether or not nanoparticles were likely to exist
in this natural phenomenon, shedding light on a scientific mystery.

Video of a floating fireball: WMV (610KB)
http://www.physorg.com/newman/gfx/files/Fireball%20floating.wmv

The work was done at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in
Grenoble. The facility uses an x-ray that is 10 billion times more
powerful than a typical x-ray found in a hospital. Additionally,
Mitchell explains, the accelerator for the synchrotron is more than a
kilometer in circumference: "We can get measurements here that we
couldn't get in many other places."

"We passed an x-ray beam through the fireball we made, and saw that it
was scattered. This indicated that there were particles inside the
fireball." Not only were Mitchell and his peers able to determine that
nanoparticles must exist in fireballs similar to ball lightning, but
they were also able to take measurements. "Particle size, density,
distribution and even decay rate were measured using this technique,"
he says.

Mitchell's work with fireballs isn't finished. When PhysOrg.com spoke
to him for this article, he was back in Grenoble taking more
measurements. "This is interesting from a fundamental standpoint," he
insists, "and right now we are more interested in size and structure."
Additionally, he says that some of the particles will be trapped and
sent to Tel Aviv in order to study them for composition.

Mitchell hopes that this work will have more practical applications as
well. "We are working with coupling the nanoparticles with microwave
energy," he says. "They heat up very quickly. This could be a way of
producing catalysts for other experiments."

Right now, it looks as though one of the mysteries of ball lightning
has been solved. This experiment has provided a strong case for the
presence of nanoparticles in ball lightning. The next step is
discovering what scientists can do with the information.

More videos can be found at http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~jerby/Fireballs.html

http://www.physorg.com/news122559215.html


--Kapitza produced fireballs by high-power radio waves [6], suggesting
accordingly an external-energy mechanism for fireballs
in nature.--
http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~jerby/67.pdf

'Radio waves' reminded me of Kanzius and his burning salt water
experiment.

http://finance.google.com/group/google.finance.658555/search?q=Kanzius&group=google.finance.658555&qt_g=Search+Discussions