Fast and environmental-friendly methods of silica nanoparticles synthesis for application in evaluating soybean plants growth in the presence of nanoparticles

• Grant number: 22/01418-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)
• Start date: April 01, 2022
• End date: September 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Chemistry - Analytical Chemistry
• Principal Investigator: Marco Aurelio Zezzi Arruda
• Grantee: Paulo Cesar Rodrigues
• Host Institution: Instituto de Química (IQ). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 18/25207-0 - Nanometallomics applied to soybean cultivation for studying the effects of metal-related nanoparticles, AP.TEM

Abstract

Through metallomics and other omics platforms - of the biological effects of the soybean plants, cultivated in the presence of nanoparticles, the two main scientific and technological challenges with regard to the synthesis of nanoparticles are (I) the development of environmentally friendly synthetic routes. As highlighted in the introduction of the project, in the synthetic routes conventionally employed, there is often a need for the use of toxic substances and dangerous products and may cause biological and environmental, which may impair the development of the plant and hinder the correlation on the real effect of the action of the nanoparticles. In the particular case of silica nanoparticle synthesis, most synthetic routes involve the sol-gel route employing rather specific reagents (alkoxides, chlorides - very sensitive to moisture) and are expensive and difficult to obtain on a large scale, as will be mentioned in the next item, (II) obtaining robust methods that allow for scale-up production. (AU)