The study of behavior of platinum nanoparticles in environmental compartments

Platinum nanoparticles pose a risk to environmental compartments. The aim of this diploma thesis is to conduct research on the influence of platinum nanoparticles in a wide range of concentrations on soil properties at different humidities. Specifically, it is about influencing the stability of water molecular bridges, the content of aliphatic crystallites, the retention capacity of water in the soil and the strength of water binding. Furthermore, the amount of nanoparticles sorbed on the soil was also measured. These indicators give us more information about the influence of platinum nanoparticles on evapotranspiration and soil deterioration. Methods of thermal analysis (differential scanning calorimetry) and optical methods (atomic absorption spectrometry) were used for these researches. The theoretical part of the work is devoted to a comprehensive introduction to platinum and its nanoparticles, as well as aqueous molecular bridges. It has been found that 200 nm platinum nanoparticles affect the strength of aqueous molecular bridges, have no effect on aliphatic crystallite content, have minimal effect on soil water retention, and that the water bond strength decreases due to platinum nanoparticles at high relative humidity. With 200 nm platinum nanoparticles, complete adsorption to soil occurs over the entire concentration range. With 3 nm nanoparticles, the soil is supersaturated at higher concentrations and larger amounts are not adsorbed. The results show that the larger the size of the platinum nanoparticles, the lower the negative effect on evapotranspiration and soil function itself