Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Cytotoxicity Of Zno Nanoparticles Can Be Tailored By Modifying Their Surface Structure: A Green Chemistry Approach For Safer Nanomaterials, Alex Punnoose, Kelsey Dodge, John W. Rasmussen, Jordan Chess, Denise Wingett, Catherine Anders

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

ZnO nanoparticles (NP) are extensively used in numerous nanotechnology applications; however, they also happen to be one of the most toxic nanomaterials. This raises significant environmental and health concerns and calls for the need to develop new synthetic approaches to produce safer ZnO NP, while preserving their attractive optical, electronic, and structural properties. In this work, we demonstrate that the cytotoxicity of ZnO NP can be tailored by modifying their surface-bound chemical groups, while maintaining the core ZnO structure and related properties. Two equally sized (9.26 ± 0.11 nm) ZnO NP samples were synthesized from the same zinc acetate precursor …