Nanoparticles containing toxic heavy metals
That’s me, standing in the headwaters of the Clark Fork River, taking water samples. The toxic heavy metals are in this water, all right, but in what form? That’s important if you are a fish, or a human, or a water plant, or a bacterium. Take lead for instance, a highly toxic metal. Is the lead dissolved as atoms of lead in the water, or as part of the fine minerals and organic compounds that make up the stream bed, or perhaps something else. That something else is where we come in. We have found a significant portion of the lead to be held in what we call “nanoparticles”, unbelievably small mineral particles that contain lead. What’s most interesting for scientists is that because these particles are so small, basically the size of single molecules, they have unusual characteristics, behaving differently in nature than the same particles, except bigger. This is really the basis of nanoscience and technology, a relatively new field of science that is taking the world by storm. This is because nano-things have such interesting characteristics, many useful for our exploitation, that they make a big difference in everything from modern fabrics to suntan lotions to computers. So as we observe and learn more about nanoparticles that contain lead (and other toxic metals) in these river waters, we will have a much better understanding about how fast they travel downstream from the contaminant source, and how and why they affect living things.