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NanoWorld Arrow™ AFM probes are designed for easy AFM tip positioning and high resolution AFM imaging and are very popular with AFM users due to the highly symetric scans that are possible with these AFM probes because of their special tip shape. They fit to all well-known commercial SPMs (Scanning Probe Microscopes) and AFMs (Atomic Force Microscopes). The Arrow AFM probe consists of an AFM probe support chip with an AFM cantilever which has a tetrahedral AFM tip at its triangular free end.
The Arrow AFM probe is entirely made of monolithic, highly doped silicon.
The unique Arrow™ shape of the AFM cantilever with the AFM tip always placed at the very end of the AFM cantilever allows easy positioning of the AFM tip on the area of interest.
The Arrow AFM probes are available for non-contact mode, contact mode and force modulation mode imaging and are also available with a conductive platinum iridum coating. Furthermore the Arrow™ AFM probe series also includes a range of tipless AFM cantilevers and AFM cantilever arrays as well as dedicated ultra-high frequency Arrow AFM probes for high speed AFM.
To find out more about the different variations please have a look at:
You can also find various application examples for the Arrow AFM probes in the NanoWorld blog. For a selection of these articles just click on the “Arrow AFM probes” tag on the bottom of this blog entry.
When they are in put in contact with carbonate minerals dangerous environmental pollutants such as Pb2+ and Cd2+ are taken up by the solid phase assemblage and can be removed from aqueous solutions.*
As carbonates can be found almost everywhere and are easily exploitable this makes them interesting materials for environmental remediation.*
However, magnesite ( MGS ) is well-known for the slow dissolution and growth kinetics at room temperature conditions in the so-called dolomite problem.*
In their article “Pb2+Uptake by Magnesite: The Competition between Thermodynamic Driving Force and Reaction Kinetics” Fulvio Di Lorenzo, Tobias Arnold and Sergey V. Churakov use in situ atomic force microscopy (AFM) to investigate the growth of {10.4} magnesite surfaces in the absence and in the presence of Pb2+ as well as the effect of solution ageing.*
In their study the authors attempt to answer the question if and under which circumstances magnesium carbonate could be used in removing Pb from wastewater.*
The experimental results presented in above mentioned article have the object to discuss and evaluate the theoretical possibilities and the practical limitations that must be taken into account for the development of environmental remediation technologies based on magnesite.*
The experiments conducted in this study by Fulvio Di Lorenzo et al. demonstrate that, although the thermodynamic conditions are encouraging, the transformation reaction between magnesite and cerrusite makes it improbably that it will play a crucial role in the development of remediation processes for PbII pollution.*
The authors of the study conclude that, although the thermodynamic conditions are encouraging, an environmental remediation process based on MGS as the substrate for a solvent-mediated transformation reaction is unlikely to play a crucial part in industrial applications due to the slow kinetics of MGS dissolution. However, the sluggish kinetics of MGS precipitation is favourable for Pb entrapment by the precipitation of carbonate from Mg2+ and Pb2+-bearing solutions, leading to a strong PbII enrichment in the solid phase even in far-from-equilibirum conditions.*
The in situ flow-through Atomic Force Microscopy was performed using Arrow-UHFAuD AFM probes in tapping mode.
Figure 8 from “Pb2+ Uptake by Magnesite: The Competition between Thermodynamic Driving Force and Reaction Kinetics” by Fulvio Di Lorenzo et al: In situ observation of {10.4} surfaces of MGS in contact with acidic solution, pH 4 (HNO3). The images were acquired in tapping mode. The first row corresponds to height channels, while the second row reports the respective amplitude channels. (A) The dissolution at 25 °C is sluggish and it is not possible to detect any dissolution feature. (B) In the same conditions but at higher temperature (60 °C), dissolution features are observed on the {10.4} surfaces of MGS, despite the retrograde solubility. Yellow and blue lines of constant size are used to highlight the evolution of etch pits and step edges, respectively. This evidence demonstrates that the existence of kinetic barriers controls the dissolution of MGS at room temperature conditions.
*Fulvio Di Lorenzo, Tobias Arnold, and Sergey V. Churakov Pb2+ Uptake by Magnesite: The Competition between Thermodynamic Driving Force and Reaction Kinetics Minerals 2021, 11(4), 415 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/min11040415
Open Access : The article “Pb2+ Uptake by Magnesite: The Competition between Thermodynamic Driving Force and Reaction Kinetics” by Fulvio Di Lorenzo, Tobias Arnold, and Sergey V. Churakov is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Inhalation of fibrous erionite particles has been linked to malignant mesothelioma. Accordingly, erionite is considered the most carcinogenic mineral. The reactivity and the nature of erionite biotoxicity has been the subject of intensive research. Despite very close chemical and structural relationships between erionite and offretite, the reactivity of offretite in lung fluids remains unknown.* In their paper “Real-Time Observation of Fibrous Zeolites Reactivity in Contact with Simulated Lung Fluids (SLFs) Obtained by Atomic Force Microscope (AFM)”, Matteo Giordani, Georgia Cametti, Fulvio Di Lorenzo and Sergey V. Churakov investigate the interaction of erionite and offretite surfaces with simulated lung fluids by means of in situ atomic force microscope (AFM).*
The outcomes presented in the paper mentioned above represent an important step in understanding the complex processes occurring at the surfaces of mineral fibres that could be involved in the toxicological pathway.*
The topography scans were performed in tapping mode with a NanoWorld Arrow-UHFAuD AFM probes under different experimental conditions. To better discriminate the role of the tip from the actual fluid-surface interaction, additional measurements were performed in air and in water in contact mode using an Al-coated NanoWorld Arrow-CONTR AFM cantilever.
Figure 2 from M. Giordani et al. “Real-Time Observation of Fibrous Zeolites Reactivity in Contact with Simulated Lung Fluids (SLFs) Obtained by Atomic Force Microscope (AFM)”: Atomic force microscope (AFM) images of offretite FF surface, in MilliQ water at 25 °C, at different magnifications: (a) height retrace image of particles of different sizes on surface and related sections (d); (b) amplitude retrace image of particularly clean surface terraces and related section (c).
*Matteo Giordani, Georgia Cametti, Fulvio Di Lorenzo and Sergey V. Churakov Real-Time Observation of Fibrous Zeolites Reactivity in Contact withSimulated Lung Fluids (SLFs) Obtained by Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) Minerals 2019, 9(2), 83 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/min9020083
Open
Access: The paper « Real-Time Observation of Fibrous Zeolites
Reactivity in Contact with Simulated Lung Fluids (SLFs) Obtained by Atomic
Force Microscope (AFM) » by Matteo Giordani, Georgia Cametti, Fulvio Di
Lorenzo and Sergey V. Churakov is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution
and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate
credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative
Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third
party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons
license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If
material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your
intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted
use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To
view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
