Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Is there a way to test for silver nanoparticles in a high school science lab? I would like to see if washing fabrics with silver nanoparticles would cause them to get into our water system.

Hello,
You have a very interesting question. If you would be able to culture a couple Petri dishes of bacteria, such as E. Coli, and add the water that might have silver nanoparticles in it to the half of the cultures (the other half only has E. Coli, but you would still add deionized water, so all of the variables except the presence of silver nanoparticles are controlled; these will serve as a Standard of Comparison), then if the cultures with contaminated water don't grow much bacteria compared to the control cultures, then there were silver nanoparticles present in the water. If there is no detectable difference between all of the cultures, then it means that the water did not contain silver nanoparticles because they release silver ions that effectively kill bacteria.

More information about this effect can be found here:http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/120-a386/

I hope this helps!
-Meg

I'm not quite sure about silver. It does work for copper. I once had a really interesting investigation in my chemistry lab. While washing equipment, I found out that the water turns blue. After doing some testing such as mixing the solution with solution with sodium hydroxide. A beautiful precipitate formed. We concluded that this precipitate must be copper (II) hydroxide and therefore it's the copper (II) ions from the pipe that turns water into blue. It also indicates that the pipe is about to break down.