CAREER: Mineral growth by nanoparticle aggregation: Aluminosilicate minerals

GSTDTAP

项目编号	1652237
	CAREER: Mineral growth by nanoparticle aggregation: Aluminosilicate minerals
	Frederick Marc Michel
主持机构	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
项目开始年	2017
	2017-07-15
项目结束日期	2022-06-30
资助机构	US-NSF
项目类别	Continuing grant
项目经费	231752(USD)
国家	美国
语种	英语
英文摘要	The goal of this CAREER project is to develop an innovative research program at the forefront of the science of nanoparticle aggregation-based mineral growth. Aluminosilicate minerals are abundant in nature and among the most reactive inorganic constituents in soils and sediments. Nanosized aluminosilicates such as imogolite, allophane and halloysite, along with related clay minerals such as kaolinite, affect the physical and chemical properties of soils due to interactions with water, nutrients (e.g., Phosphorus, Nitrogen and Carbon), heavy metal contaminants, and pathogens. Learning how aluminosilicate minerals form at environmental conditions will lead to new and improved strategies to enhance soil fertility and to predict pollutant transport and fate. New insights into aluminosilicate growth processes will lead to novel synthesis methods for new earth-abundant metal catalysts, as well as engineered materials for water treatment applications and long-term nuclear waste storage. Aluminosilicate nanoparticles with well-defined characteristic shapes (tubes, hollow spheres, plates, etc.) are an intriguing alternative to carbon-based nanoparticles for medical applications such as drug delivery and functional composite materials. This project will advance the broader scientific and technological community by distributing and disseminating novel research methods and results through an integrated program of undergraduate and graduate teaching, scientific publications and presentations (including short courses and conference symposia), general outreach, and student research training. This effort will use new tools and techniques to understand crystallization science, including in silico crystal structure visualization and desktop 3D printing. These tools will be applied as part of educational curriculum for undergraduate and graduate coursework, and will be available to others at no cost on a new crystallization knowledge and discovery website. The primary research objective of this CAREER project is to understand how nanosized aluminosilicate minerals form at low-temperature conditions via the aggregation and assembly of precursor nanoparticles. This will be achieved using a three-phase approach that includes new systematic synthesis methods and characterization by a suite of complementary synchrotron and laboratory methods, real time crystallization studies using custom microfluidics devices, and process modeling. High-resolution electron microscopy combined with new synthesis strategies using tracer elements as chemical labels will be used to track how nanoparticle precursors evolve during classical and nonclassical growth. Real-time studies of mineral growth will use state-of-the-art scattering and spectroscopic methods along with custom microfluidics devices fabricated by desktop 3D printing. Experimental results from complementary analytical characterization methods will be combined with theory and computation to produce molecular-scale models of structural and physicochemical characteristics of the aluminosilicate nanoparticles and precursors of aluminosilicate minerals. This will lead to new conceptual models for the processes of aggregation and precursor attachment. The fundamental knowledge generated by this research on aluminosilicates will help us understand clay formation in nature, and will provide the foundation for continuing research on processes that lead to mineral formation.
URL	查看原文
文献类型	项目
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.173/C666/handle/2XK7JSWQ/71298
专题	环境与发展全球科技态势
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Frederick Marc Michel.CAREER: Mineral growth by nanoparticle aggregation: Aluminosilicate minerals.2017.