The cell wall is a defining plant biosurface that controls the interactions of nanoparticles with plants in the environment. We systematically investigated the influence of nanoparticle zeta potential and charge distribution on the interactions with plant cell walls. For this purpose, we synthesized nanoparticles of environmental and agricultural interest including fluorescent carbon dots (CDs) with positive, neutral, and negative zeta potentials. We also developed novel model plant cell wall biosurfaces built with cellulose or pectin for comparative studies with native cell walls from Arabidopsis plants Coleochaete green algae. We analyzed the interactions between CDs and plant cell walls by confocal fluorescence microscopy, FTIR, XPS, and QCM-D. Our results indicate that positively charged CDs have the strongest affinity to plant cell walls, which is dominated by the ionic bonding between the surface amine groups of CDs and the carboxyl groups of pectin, while CDs with negative or neutral zeta potential exhibited negligible interactions with plant cell walls. This study provides new tools for understanding the interactions of nanomaterials with chemically heterogeneous plant cell walls, insights into nanoparticle design for plant bioengineering and nano-enabled agriculture, and approaches to assess nanoparticle sustainability in the environment.

Electrostatic interactions of carbon dots with plant model and native cell walls

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.