A new method to study nanoparticles

Researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (Singapore; https://smart.mit.edu) have discovered a way to study the properties of a nanoparticle without damaging it, which has not been possible so far. The work was led by Michael Strano, a professor at MIT (Cambridge, Mass.; www.mit.edu), and a principal investigator of DiSTAP — the Disruptive & Sustainable Technologies for Agricultural Precision Interdisciplinary Research Group — which is a part of Smart. DiSTAP develops new technologies to enable Singapore to improve its agriculture yield to reduce its dependence on imported food and produce. The researchers’ method, called molecular probe adsorption (MPA), is based on a non-invasive adsorption of a fluorescent probe on the surface of colloidal nanoparticles in aqueous phase. The corona phase — the adsorbed layer of polymer, surfactant, or stabilizer molecules around a nanoparticle — is typically used to disperse nanoparticles into a solution or solid phase. However, this phase also controls molecular access to the nanoparticle surface. The MPA method allows measuring the accessible nanoparticle surface using a titration of a quenchable fluorescent molecule. A material balance on the titration…