Combustion of fuels leads to the emission of carbonaceous nanoparticles that contain elemental carbon, organic molecules and trace metals.  Despite the fact that quinone-like surface structures and transition metals have been implicated as key players in the particles’ environmental and biological reactivity, less is known about how the elemental carbon core influences these reactions.  Recent research has shown that the graphitic nature of particles may contribute to their electron donating capacity, which relates to particles’ chemical reactivity.  To further study these reactions, we used a model iron-carbon black (CB) system that consisted of hematite and various commercially available CB.  Wet-chemical and spectroscopic techniques were used to determine iron speciation and soot characteristics.  Results show that heat-treating carbon black particles in the presence of hematite, leads to increased reductive dissolution of iron in aqueous suspensions.   Preliminary results indicate that this process is enhanced with increased abundance of surface graphene layers.  These findings contribute to the understanding of mechanisms that control soot reactivity in cellular and environmental systems.

Reactions of hematite in the presence of carbon nanoparticles

255th National Meeting (2018)

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