![\"rd1606_nanoparticle_gold\"](\"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/rd1606_nanoparticle_gold.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe researcher, Simon Billinge and his lab, pioneered a method which they call atomic Pair Distribution Function (PDF) to analyze the results of high energy x-ray scattering from the material.\u00a0 The resulting polymorph provided an explanation of why other researchers have had difficulty in identifying the structure of the material.\u00a0 The researchers anticipate being able to find additional materials with the polymorphism.<\/p>\n
On a different front, there is work being done on impact of environmental exposure to nanomaterials.\u00a0 Work being done at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology examines an issue of the difference between materials produced for applications and those released in the environment. [Ref. 4]\u00a0 One example that is described is titanium dioxide.\u00a0 Adding the nanoparticles to paint a) enhances the self-cleaning capabilities of the paint and b) blocks UV rays thus preventing or diminishing paint degradation. One of the issues is that finding sufficient testable quantities of samples of nanoparticles that have degraded over time is difficult.\u00a0 This fact makes evaluations of nano-toxicity difficult if not impossible.<\/p>\n
Work has been done [Ref. 5] on silver nanoparticles that are added to textiles as biocides to prevent the growth\/spread of microorganisms.\u00a0 There is a release of some of the nanoparticles into the environment.\u00a0 However, if the released silver ions compline with other ions, like sulphides, they create silver sulphide, which is not an active biocide.\u00a0 This is part of an over effort to evaluate the life cycle of nanomaterials and will be available in 2017.\u00a0 More information is available in Reference 6.<\/p>\n
An interesting finding is that silver nanoparticle shape affects its toxicity. [Ref. 7]\u00a0 Research was done on the impact of silver nanoparticles shape (spheres, rods, and plates) on rainbow trout cells and zebrafish embryos.\u00a0 The researchers concluded that the silver nanoplates induced oxidative stress in the cells through the production of superoxides, which are toxic.\u00a0 There were conditions that they placed on the experiments and will require further and expanded testing.<\/p>\n
This brings us back to the title of this blog.\u00a0 If nanomaterials can have different shapes\/configuration, then the potential results of toxicological investigations will depend on the shape of the material.\u00a0 If the material has the ability to shape-shift, how do we develop testing methodologies that account for the possible difference impact of the material shapes.\u00a0 If you think that the shape does not make a difference, I will give you two pounds of graphite (carbon) for one pound of diamond (carbon).<\/p>\n
The evaluation of the environmental\/human impact of any nanomaterial must incorporate the fact that these materials have properties based on the shape under test and not an overall classification of material size.<\/p>\n
References:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is polymorphism?\u00a0 In the Oxford Dictionary, polymorph is an organism or inorganic object or material that takes various forms.\u00a0 Polymorphism is defined, in material science, as the [..]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nanotechnology-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions\/223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n