The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) on June 3 announced that its researchers have shown that common minerals can be broken down by water microdroplets to make corresponding nanoparticles.
This is the first research paper from IIT Madras to be published in the ‘Science’ journal, the institute said in a statement.
Notably, 'Science' is the peer-reviewed academic journal of American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s oldest and largest general science organisation, which was founded in 1880 with seed money from Thomas Edison.
The research found that atmospheric water droplets such as clouds and fog can be charged due to ionic species present in them and by contact electrification. Disintegration of minerals make nascent surfaces and on such surfaces, different types of catalysis may occur, forming new molecules. These processes could be important to understand the origin of life.
The researchers said that ‘microdroplet showers’ composed of nanoparticles and molecules falling on Earth may be of importance to the chemical and biological evolution of the planet.
The research was led by Professor Thalappil Pradeep, Institute Professor, Chemistry Department, IIT Madras, a Padma Shri awardee, and BK Spoorthi, the first author of the research paper who has just completed her PhD from IIT Madras.
The computational work was done by Koyendrila Debnath under the advice of Professor Umesh V Waghmare of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bengaluru and President of Indian Academy of Sciences.
The researchers found that pieces of minerals such as river sand, ruby and alumina, which are very hard minerals, incorporated in tiny charged water droplets break spontaneously to form nanoparticles, in milliseconds.
They collected the formed nanoparticles and characterised them with advanced methods. Computer simulations suggested that the phenomenon may occur by a process called ‘proton-induced slip’, in which atomic layers in the minerals slip between each other, assisted by protons. In tiny water droplets, protons and other reactive species are known to exist.
This rapid process of weathering may be important for soil formation, given the prevalence of charged aerosols in the atmosphere. Soil forms through rock weathering, a process involving multiple factors and it takes 200-400 years to yield one centimetre of it normally, composed of varied particle sizes. Nanoparticles of minerals such as silica are crucial for the growth of crops such as rice and wheat.
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