The Overview
Why? Magnetite Nanocrystals are good for removing arsenic from water. Based on recent advances in nanotechnology, it’s now possible to make regular magnetite nanocrystals as small as 20-100nm, and to remove them from solution using a handheld magnet. Arsenic poisoning is a huge problem in Southeast Asia, especially in Bangladesh, and in various other parts of the world. Our project opens up the process for making magnetite and encourages you to experiment with it, contribute to it, and improve it.
- Step 1: Prepare and Collect Ingredients
- Step 2: Make your own soap.
- Step 3: Produce a Fatty Acid Mixture
- Step 4: Collect and Grind some Rust
- Step 5:Cook/grow your own magnetite crystals
- Step 6: Verify your Magnetite Crystals
(a) Ingredients for a typical nanocrystal synthesis include: Oil, vinegar, pan, crystal drain openerTM and rust.
(b-c) Synthesis begins with soapmaking. For this the oil is mixed with crystal drain openerTM and water.
(d) After curing for a day the soap solidifies.
(e) For efficient dissolution in subsequent steps, the soap is ground to a fine powder,
(f) then mixed with vinegar
(g-h) while heating on a stove.
(i-j) Once all the soap is dissolved the solution forms two layers: a yellow top layer and a cloudy white/yellow bottom layer.
(k) The top layer is the fatty acid mixture (FAM). This needs to be heated at 110 oC to remove excess water and vinegar by-products.
(l) Clear yellow FAM is collected.
(m-n) Rust was scraped off of rusted metals and was ground to a fine powder.
(o) FAM and rust were mixed.
(p-q) Mixture was heated for 2 hours at below and near boiling temperatures. The temperature was measured using a standard mercury thermometer.
(r-s) Magnetite (black) began to form.
(t) TEM micrograph was obtained after magnetic separation in chloroform. Scale bar is 50 nm.
Download a PDF file of the complete, latest version of the instructions.
I am curious about this question: What happens to the crystals if placed in liquid suspension and set inside a varying magnetic field? Would the crystals move in the suspension? And, if they move, and if they could be made to move “sufficiently fast”, what happens at the nanometer scale — would the crystals have some funky interactions with molecules in suspension?
We have alot of ‘black sand’ (mostly Magnetite) in my area can you use this instead of rust? Is yes, is there any benefit?
I think the a good step towards advancing open nano from this point would be to physically characterize the particles that have been synthesized so that we can understand in detail the matter’s properties.
From that point we can begin to ponder what other “open source” modifications / applications we can use the magnetic nano particles in.
Also, creating gold nano particles via steric stabilization with acid and thiols is a cheap and very low cost way to make gold nano particles.
Thiols of course are a good mechanism for biological functionalization…