CBEN: Buckyball aggregates are soluble, antibacterialJune 23, 2005Research offers clues about C60 behavior in natural environments HOUSTON, June 22, 2005 - In some of the first research to probe how buckyballs will interact with natural ecosystems, Rice University's Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology finds that the molecules spontaneously clump together upon contact with water, forming nanoparticles that are both soluble and toxic to bacteria. The research challenges conventional wisdom: since buckyballs are notoriously insoluble by themselves, most scientists had assumed they would remain insoluble in nature. The findings also raise questions about how the buckyball aggregates - dubbed nano-C60 - will interact with other particles and living things in natural ecosystems. The findings appear in the June 1 issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology. "The fact that nano-C60 dissolves in water raises questions about water as a vector for the movement of these types of materials," said Vicki Colvin, CBEN director, professor of chemistry and a co-author on the study. Buckyballs are soccer ball-shaped molecules of 60 carbon atoms that were discovered at Rice in 1985. While a few companies are already using trace amounts of buckyballs in products, large-scale production of buckyballs is still a year or two away. Ultimately, companies hope to use buckyballs in everything from pharmaceuticals to sporting goods. The research team was led by Georgia Tech environmental engineer Joseph Hughes and included almost a dozen Rice collaborators. They found that nano-C60 readily dissolves in water. The clumps, which measured between 25 and 500 nanometers in diameter, were also found to persist for up to 15 weeks in freshwater. The researchers also exposed nano-C60 to two common types of soil bacteria. They found the particles inhibited both the growth and respiration of the bacteria at very low concentrations - as little as 0.5 parts per million. "The antibacterial properties of the C60 aggregates also raise some interesting questions," said Colvin. "We think it may be possible to harness those properties for good applications, but we also advocate continued research on the potentially negative effects that these materials could have on the health of natural ecosystems." Hughes, the study's lead author, said scientists don't yet know enough to accurately predict what impact buckyballs will have on the environment or in living systems, but he said the findings do illustrate the shortcomings of federal guidelines for the handling and disposal of buckyballs, which are subject to the same regulations as bulk carbon black. "Not all carbon is the same," said Hughes. "Graphite and diamonds are both bulk carbon, for example, but current standards call for handling them in completely different ways. Our results suggest buckyballs also should be handled differently." Other Rice collaborators include CBEN Executive Director Kevin Ausman; Jane Tao, assistant professor of biochemistry and cell biology; Wenhua Guo, research scientist; Lawrence Alemany, senior research scientist; and graduate students J.D. Fortner, D. Y. Lyon, C.M. Sayes, A.M. Boyd, J.C. Falkner and E.M. Hotze. Rice University |
|||||||||||||||||||||
| Related Buckyballs Current Events and Buckyballs News Articles New study confirms exotic electric properties of graphene First, it was the soccer-ball-shaped molecules dubbed buckyballs. Then it was the cylindrically shaped nanotubes. Now, the hottest new material in physics and nanotechnology is graphene: a remarkably flat molecule made of carbon atoms arranged in hexagonal rings much like molecular chicken wire. Jet-propelled Imaging for an Ultrafast Light Source John Spence, a physicist at Arizona State University, is a longtime user of the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he has contributed to major advances in lensless imaging. Nanophysics: Serving up Buckyballs on a silver platter Scientists at Penn State University, in collaboration with institutes in the US, Finland, Germany and the UK, have figured out the long-sought structure of a layer of C60 - carbon buckyballs - on a silver surface. UCR scientists manipulate ripples in graphene, enabling strain-based graphene electronics Graphene is nature's thinnest elastic material and displays exceptional mechanical and electronic properties. MIT: New material could lead to faster chips New research findings at MIT could lead to microchips that operate at much higher speeds than is possible with today's standard silicon chips, leading to cell phones and other communications systems that can transmit data much faster. Buckyballs could keep water systems flowing Microscopic particles of carbon known as buckyballs may be able to keep the nation's water pipes clear in the same way clot-busting drugs prevent arteries from clogging up. Semiconducting nanotubes produced in quantity at Duke After announcing last April a method for growing exceptionally long, straight, numerous and well-aligned carbon cylinders only a few atoms thick, a Duke University-led team of chemists has now modified that process to create exclusively semiconducting versions of these single-walled carbon nanotubes. Manufactured Buckyballs don't harm microbes that clean the environment Even large amounts of manufactured nanoparticles, also known as Buckyballs, don't faze microscopic organisms that are charged with cleaning up the environment, according to Purdue University researchers. Video shows buckyballs form by 'shrink wrapping' The birth secret of buckyballs -- hollow spheres of carbon no wider than a strand of DNA -- has been caught on tape by researchers at Sandia National Laboratory and Rice University. An electron microscope video and computer simulations show that "shrink-wrapping" is the key; buckyballs start life as distorted, unstable sheets of graphite, shedding loosely connected threads and chains until only the perfectly spherical buckyballs remain. Quantum analog of Ulam's conjecture can guide molecules, reactions Like navigating spacecraft through the solar system by means of gravity and small propulsive bursts, researchers can guide atoms, molecules and chemical reactions by utilizing the forces that bind nuclei and electrons into molecules (analogous to gravity) and by using light for propulsion. More Buckyballs Current Events and Buckyballs News Articles |
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||