Molecular-Level Investigations of Nucleation Mechanisms and Kinetics of Formation of Environmental Nanoparticles

Environmental nanoparticles are often poorly-crystalline or metastable structures, whose kinetics of formation and growth are poorly understood. Further, the sorption or growth of nanoparticles on mineral surfaces may control the mineral surface's reactivity and modify its ability to influence contaminant transport. Due to the characteristic length scale, a holistic understanding of the nucleation mechanisms and kinetics of nanoparticle formation on mineral surfaces is difficult to achieve with traditional methodology. In this work, our intent is to determine the molecular nature of nucleation on surfaces, the kinetics of surface nucleation and growth, and the effect of crystal surface topology using new synchrotron-based techniques. We have approached these objectives by: (1) combining state-of-the-art crystal-truncation rod diffraction (CTR) and grazing incidence x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy (GIXAS) techniques to investigate the three-dimensional molecular-scale geometry of silicate monomer sorption on the r-plane of hematite; and (2) developing a new grazing-incidence small angle x-ray scattering (GISAXS) setup at SSRL (0.08 nm{sup -1} < q < 8 nm{sup -1}) to explore the initial development of environmental nanoparticles on various mineral surfaces. This study also includes complementary techniques such as atomic force microscopy (AFM), bulk SAXS, dynamic light scattering (DLS), XRD, and TEM