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Stable silver isotope fractionation in the natural transformation process of silver nanoparticles

Nature Nanotechnology volume 11, pages 682–686 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Nanoparticles in the environment can form by natural processes or be released due to human activities1. Owing to limited analytical methods, the behaviour of nanoparticles in the natural environment is poorly understood and until now they have only been described by the variations in the nanoparticle size or the concentration of the element of interest. Here we show that by using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry to measure silver (Ag) isotope ratios it is possible to understand the transformation processes of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) in the environment. We found that the formation and dissolution of AgNPs under natural conditions caused significant variations in the ratio of natural Ag isotopes (107Ag and 109Ag) with an isotopic enrichment factor (ε) up to 0.86‰. Furthermore, we show that engineered AgNPs have distinctly different isotope fractionation effects to their naturally formed counterparts. Further studies will be needed to understand whether isotope analysis can be used to reveal the sources of AgNPs in the environment.

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Figure 1: Reactions and physical processes of AgNPs and Ag+ in DOM-containing natural waters.
Figure 2: Ag isotope fractionation in the HA-mediated formation of AgNPs.
Figure 3: Ag isotope fractionation in the dissolution of AgNPs.
Figure 4: Ag isotope fractionation in the adsorption of Ag+ and the photoreduction of Ag salts.
Figure 5: Proposed dissolution pathways of AgNPs.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge financial support from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDB14010400), the National Basic Research Program of China (2015CB931903, 2015CB932003) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21377141, 21422509, 91543104). Q.L. acknowledges the support from the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of CAS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China

    Dawei Lu, Qian Liu, Tuoya Zhang, Yong Cai, Yongguang Yin & Guibin Jiang

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  1. Dawei Lu
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  2. Qian Liu
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  3. Tuoya Zhang
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Contributions

Q.L. and G.J. conceived and designed the experiments; D.L. and T.Z. performed the experiments; Q.L. and D.L. analyzed the data; Y.C. and Y.Y. gave comments on the paper; Q.L. and G.J. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Qian Liu or Guibin Jiang.

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Lu, D., Liu, Q., Zhang, T. et al. Stable silver isotope fractionation in the natural transformation process of silver nanoparticles. Nature Nanotech 11, 682–686 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2016.93

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