Rice University engineers have created containers that can prevent Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) from accumulating on the surface of stored nanomaterials. A low-cost, portable storage technology New Storage Technology keeps the Nanosurface Clean that solves a widespread problem in nanofabrication and scientific equipment is described in an article published this week in the American Chemical Society’s journal Nano Letters.
“VOCs are in the air around us every day,” said the study’s author, Daniel Preston, assistant professor in Rice’s engineering department. “They stick to the surface and create a coating, usually carbon. You can’t see these layers with the naked eye, but they form, often within minutes, on anything exposed to the air.
VOCs are carbon-based molecules that are emitted from many common products, including cleaning fluids, paints, and industrial and technical equipment. They accumulate indoors especially at high levels, and the small amount of carbon they deposit on the surface can disrupt the production process of the factory, limit the accuracy of the microfluidic test equipment, and cause confusion the people.
To solve the problem, Ph.D. Zhen Liu, student and research paper leader, along with Preston and others from his lab, developed a new type of storage (New Storage Technology keeps the Nanosurface Clean) that keeps things clean. Tests have shown that its system effectively prevents surface contamination for at least six weeks and can clean VOC layers deposited on previously contaminated surfaces.
The technology depends on the clean walls inside the bag. On the inner wall, small bumps are used on the front surface from a few million to a few billionths of a meter. Microscopic and nanoscopic imperfections increase the surface area of the wall, making many of its metal atoms in the VOC and the air inside the container when it is closed.
“Texture allows the inner wall of the container to act as a ‘sacrificial’ element,” Liu said. “VOCs are drawn to the surface of the container, allowing the rest of the material stored inside to be purified.”
He said the use of large landfills before collecting pollutants had been proposed 50 years ago but had not been widely adopted. He and his colleagues advanced the idea with modern methods of surface cleaning and nanotexturing.
They showed, through a series of experiments, that their method prevented VOCs from coating the surface of the preserved material better than other methods, including sealed petri dishes and modern incubators.
Preston’s team used their experiments to come up with a model that knew exactly what happened inside the container. Preston said the model will allow them to improve their plans and improve system performance in the future.
Source: Rice University
