When the World of Nanotechnology and Microbreweries Meet
upstart writes:
Often considered as "artificial atoms," quantum dots are used in the transmission of light. With a range of interesting physicochemical properties, this type of nanotechnology has been successfully used as a sensor in biomedicine or as LEDs in next generation displays. But there is a drawback. Current quantum dots are produced with heavy and toxic metals like cadmium. Carbon is an interesting alternative, both for its biocompatibility and its accessibility.
The choice of brewery waste as a source material came from Daniele Benetti, a postdoctoral fellow at INRS, and Aurel Thibaut Nkeumaleu, the master's student at ETS who conducted the work. [...]
"The use of spent grain highlights both an eco-responsible approach to waste management and an alternative raw material for the synthesis of carbon quantum dots, from a circular economy perspective," says Professor Rosei.
The advantage of using brewery waste as a source of carbon quantum dots is that it is naturally enriched with nitrogen and phosphorus. This avoids the need for pure chemicals.
"This research was a lot of fun, lighting up what we can do with the beer by-products," says Claudiane Ouellet-Plamondon, Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Multifunctional Construction Materials at ETS. "Moreover, ETS is located on the site of the former Dow brewery, one of the main breweries in Quebec until the 1960s. So there is a historical and heritage link to this work."
[...] The next steps will be to characterize these carbon quantum dots from brewery waste, beyond proof of concept. The research team is convinced that this nanotechnology has the potential to become sophisticated detection sensors for various aqueous solutions, even in living cells.
Journal Reference:
Aurel Thibaut Nkeumaleu, Daniele Benetti, Imane Haddadou, et al. Brewery spent grain derived carbon dots for metal sensing [open], RSC Advances (DOI: 10.1039/D2RA00048B)
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