d5ZGeM-acsami.9b03062.pdf (5.81 MB)
Core-shell NaHoF4@TiO2 NPs: A labelling method to trace engineered nanomaterials of ubiquitous elements in the environment
journal contribution
posted on 2019-05-31, 12:45 authored by Xianjin Cui, Benjamin Fryer, Diwei ZhouDiwei Zhou, Rhys Lodge, Andrei N. Khlobystov, Eugenia Valsami-Jones, Iseult LynchUnderstanding the fate and behavior of nanoparticles (NPs) in the natural environment is important to assess
their potential risk. Single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (spICP-MS) allows for the detection of NPs at
extremely low concentrations, but the high natural background of the constituents of many of the most widely utilized nanoscale
materials makes accurate quantification of engineered particles challenging. Chemical doping, with a less naturally abundant
element, is one approach to address this; however, certain materials with high natural abundance, such as TiO2 NPs, are
notoriously difficult to label and differentiate from natural NPs. Using the low abundance rare earth element Ho as a marker,
Ho-bearing core -TiO2 shell (NaHoF4@TiO2) NPs were designed to enable the quantification of engineered TiO2 NPs in real
environmental samples. The NaHoF4@TiO2 NPs were synthesized on a large scale (gram), at relatively low temperatures, using
a sacrificial Al(OH)3 template that confines the hydrolysis of TiF4 within the space surrounding the NaHoF4 NPs. The resulting
NPs consist of a 60 nm NaHoF4 core and a 5 nm anatase TiO2 shell, as determined by TEM, STEM-EDX mapping, and spICPMS. The NPs exhibit excellent detectability by spICP-MS at extremely low concentrations (down to 1 × 10−3 ng/L) even in
complex natural environments with high Ti background.
Funding
This work was supported by the European Union via the Horizon 2020 project NanoFASE (Grant 646002) and a Natural Environment Resaerch Council CASE PhD studentship with PerkinElmer as the CASE partner (BF).
History
School
- Science
Department
- Mathematical Sciences
Published in
ACS Applied Materials and InterfacesVolume
11Issue
21Pages
19452-19461Citation
CUI, X. ... et al., 2019. Core-shell NaHoF4@TiO2 NPs: A labelling method to trace engineered nanomaterials of ubiquitous elements in the environment. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 11(21), pp. 19452-19461.Publisher
American Chemical SocietyVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/Acceptance date
2019-05-06Publication date
2019-05-06Notes
This is an Open Access Article. It is published by American Chemical Society under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ISSN
1944-8252Publisher version
Language
- en