The Fascinating Nano-science and Nano-technology: Multi-component Nanoparticles

Assistant Professor Dr. Peng Zhang and his group are conducting research on metal nanoparticles (the fundamental building blocks of nano-technology). Peng is searching for new applications in catalysis and biological and biomedical technology.

Peng's research falls into the rapidly growing field of nano-science and nano-technology and centres around the studies of metal nanoparticles, the fundamental building blocks of nanotechnology, whose sizes are < 100 nanometer (1 nanometer = 1 billionth meter). It covers a number of exciting inter-disciplinary areas such as physics, chemistry, molecular biology and materials engineering, ranging from the control of the atomic structure and electronic properties of multi-component metal nanoparticles to the exploration of their potential applications in catalysis and biotechnology.

To control the atomic structure of nanoparticles, Peng and his group aim at tailoring the surface interfacial structure, multi-metallic mixing pattern and particle size (see Fig.1) by developing efficient wet-chemical synthetic methods.

The key research tools employed in their research are a variety of X-ray techniques such as X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) and associated methods. Some representative X-ray spectroscopy results are shown below (Fig.2)

One important application of these atomic-structure-tailored nanoparticles is in catalysis. Peng is particularly interested in the studies of Fe, Co or Ni-based core-shell nanoparticle catalysts that exhibit advantages such as tunable-reactivity, low-cost and easy-separation (Fig.3).

Peng and his group are also exploring the biological and biomedical applications of nanoparticles in collaboration with another group of biochemical and biomedical scientists. The current projects include regulation of enzyme activity using nanoparticles (Fig.4) and protein separation/detection based on magnetic core-gold shell nanoparticles (Fig.5).

Peng's research program is funded by Dalhousie University (start-up from Chemistry Department and Faculty of Science), National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and Canada Foundation of Innovation (CFI).