Tiny Work

 Dr. Kim Deok-jong.
Dr. Kim Deok-jong.

 

On Sept. 10, the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials announced that one of its teams headed by Dr. Kim Deok-jong successfully developed a technology that can select and measure the density of minute amounts of silver nanolines and particles that exist in water.

The research team succeeded in determining the types of silver nanomaterials with oxidation potential values that were created when they are oxidized in an electrochemical manner for 1 minute after attaching the nanomaterials, which exist in water solutions, to electrodes for 10 minutes, and in measuring the density of silver nanomaterials with current values. It is the first time to develop a technique to recognize the kind and density of silver nanomaterials at the same time.

The existing method to create high-frequency inducted plasmas allows researchers to measure the density of silver nanomaterials without determining their types. Since a pre-conditioning process that ionizes silver nanomaterials by melting them with nitric acid is required, it is impossible to measure their density on the spot. It normally takes more than one day.

The new tech that can distinguish silver nano-lines and particles from nanomaterials is likely to be usable especially in an industry that manufactures high-quality transparent electrodes.

In addition, it will be much easier to monitor silver nanomaterials in valleys, rivers, and seas. With the introduction of different kinds of silver nanoproducts, much attention is being paid to how the strong antibacterial characteristics of silver nano materials affect the environment and the human body. Therefore, the newly-developed method is expected to help researchers recognize the kind and density of silver nanomaterials in the environment.

The research findings were recently published online by Analyst, a scientific journal published by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

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