Over the last two decades, there has been considerable interest in synthesizing new nanomaterials with unusual optical and catalytic properties. This has led to many innovative new applications. The success of this research has created a great deal of enthusiasm for nanomaterials as a solution to the nation's energy, medical, and environmental needs. Unfortunately, very few of these nanomaterials have made it to the marketplace due to challenges with scaling up their manufacturing and finding low-cost and 'green' or environmentally-benign methods to make them at an industrial scale. However, nature does an excellent job of reproducibly making complex metal and semiconductor nanomaterials. This biological inspiration will be used to generate bionanomanufacturing platforms in aqueous solutions without hazardous materials or extreme processing conditions. This interdisciplinary research will be integrated into the curriculum and provide research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. This project will integrate research with teaching and mentoring, provide unique student internships, and teach them about innovation, intellectual property, and entrepreneurship.
Biological organisms utilize proteins and peptides to produce individual metal nanoparticles at room temperature without organic solvents as a method to deal with metal-ion toxicity in the biological cell. This bio-detoxification process produces uniform and pure spherical nanoparticles. In addition, there is biological programming to the size, shape, and purity of the nanoparticles produced, although the mechanism of this biological programming is not well understood. This award will utilize the bio-inspiration of microbial metal nanoparticle fabrication to build new bionanomanufacturing platforms. This interdisciplinary project will include fundamental biological studies of the mechanisms that microbes utilize to control metal nanoparticle nucleation and growth. These fundamental studies will determine the proteins responsible for control of nucleation and growth. These proteins will be translated to in-vitro manufacturing processes using cell-free techniques for forming the same metal nanoparticles outside of the living cell, but with considerably higher production rates. These cell-free techniques will include protein immobilization, protein stabilization, and cofactor regeneration systems. Finally, these cell-free processes and techniques will be utilized for nanomanufacturing of metal nanoparticle systems of various size, shape, and purity. This protein-based nanomanufacturing will allow for the scale-up of manufacturing of low-cost, but high purity nanomaterials.
