NANOTECH INNOVATIONS

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University's OGI School of Science & Engineering, in collaboration with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and the University of Minnesota, have discovered that at least one type of nano-sized iron may be useful in cleaning up carbon tetrachloride contamination in groundwater. The new discovery was published online at Dec. 16, 2004, in Environmental Science & Technology, the leading environmental journal of the American Chemical Society. The study will be published in the print version of Environmental Science & Technology, March 1, 2005, in a special section on nanotechnology. "The use of nano-sized particles of iron for cleaning up contaminants in groundwater, soil and sediments is one of the hottest new technologies to emerge in recent years," said Paul Tratnyek, Ph.D., an environmental chemist and professor of environmental and biomolecular systems at OHSU's OGI School of Science & Engineering, and a lead author of the study. "However, there are a lot of unanswered questions about the appropriate and optimal implementation of the nano-iron technology, and even some questions about its safety. We set out to answer some of the remaining questions that researchers have about the basic chemical processes that determine the fate and effects of metal nanoparticles in the environment