Synthesis of Functionalized Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles from a Common Precursor and their Application as Heavy Metal and Actinide Sorbents

We describe the use of a simple and versatile technique to generate a series of ligand stabilized iron oxide nanoparticles containing different functionalities with specificities toward heavy metals and actinides at the periphery of the stabilizing ligand shell from a common, easy to synthesize precursor nanoparticle. The resulting nanoparticles are designed to contain affinity ligands that make them excellent sorbent materials for a variety of heavy metals from contaminated aqueous systems such as river water and ground water as well as actinides from clinical samples such as blood and urine. Functionalized superparamagnetic nanoparticles make ideal reagents for extraction of heavy metal and actinide contaminants from environmental and clinical samples since they are easily removed from the media once bound to the contaminant by simply applying a magnetic field. In addition, these engineered nanomaterials have an inherently high active surface area (often > 100 m2/g) making them ideal sorbent materials for these types of applications