Electron-Behaving Nanoparticles Rock Current Understanding of Matter

Poof!

Tornado, are you saying you're unable to post on-topic because somebody put a spell on you?

I see that somebody ex-post-facto edited the thread title. That sort of does render my post OT, but only because somebody cheated.

I see, the moderators cheated you because they added 4 more capitol letters to words in the title...but wouldn't that add additional 'mojo'? Maybe you could arm yourself with a protective charm?

I found you a beauty here...

Classic case of Hoofdaphobia...

This might help

(Opens umbrella)

Electroplating with nano particles must then be possible.

It doesn't say that the colloidal particles exhibit an electric charge. The colloid could be charge neutral. The issue is that the colloids migrate freely in a larger structure and hold things together. It doesn't say what the link mechanism is, but I suspect it's something like a hydrate type bond, or possibly sharing of electron orbitals as with polar solvents.

...""This is going to get people to think about matter in a new way," said Northwestern's Chad Mirkin, who led the experimental work. "It's going to lead to all sorts of materials that have potentially spectacular properties that have never been observed before. Properties that could lead to a variety of new technologies in the fields of optics, electronics and even catalysis."

The paper will publish Friday, June 21 in the journal Science.

Olvera de la Cruz is the Lawyer Taylor Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering. Mirkin is the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

Mirkin's group previously invented the chemistry for engineering colloidal crystals with DNA, which has forged new possibilities for materials design. In these structures, DNA strands act as a sort of smart glue to link together nanoparticles in a lattice pattern.

"Over the past two decades, we have figured out how to make all sorts of crystalline structures where the DNA effectively takes the particles and places them exactly where they are supposed to go in a lattice," said Mirkin, founding director of the International Institute of Nanotechnology.

In these previous studies, the particles' diameters are on the tens of nanometers length scale. Particles in these structures are static, fixed in place by DNA. In the current study, however, Mirkin and Olvera de la Cruz shrunk the particles down to 1.4 nanometers in diameter in computational simulations. This is where the magic happened.

"The bigger particles have hundreds of DNA strands linking them together," said Olvera de la Cruz. "The small ones only have four to eight linkers. When those links break, the particles roll and migrate through the lattice holding together the crystal of bigger particles."

When Mirkin's team performed the experiments to image the small particles, they found that Olvera de la Cruz's team's computational observations proved true. Because this behavior is reminiscent to how electrons behave in metals, the researchers call it "metallicity."

"A sea of electrons migrates throughout metals, acting as a glue, holding everything together," Mirkin explained. "That's what these nanoparticles become. The tiny particles become the mobile glue that holds everything together.""...

Metallic Bonding

In metallic bonds, the valence electrons from the s and p orbitals of the interacting metal atoms delocalize. That is to say, instead of orbiting their respective metal atoms, they form a “sea” of electrons that surrounds the positively charged atomic nuclei of the interacting metal ions.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-chemistry/chapter/crystals-and-band-theory/

"Bulk metals are NEUTRAL; therefore their electric charge must also be neutral, and thus composed of equal number of electrons and protons, fundamental, positively charged, nuclear particles.

Explanation:

However, the classic representation of metals is of positive ions in a sea of electrons. Metals are thus conceived to be elements whose valence electrons are somewhat delocalized, with each metal contributing 1 or 2 or more electrons to the overall lattice structure.

Because the individual atoms have donated some of their valence electrons, the nuclear core has a positive charge. The delocalized electrons are not associated with any given nucleus, and are thus free to move over the metallic lattice. This delocalized electron glue is responsible for the common metallic properties: malleability; ductility; conductivity to electricity and heat. In this respect metals are non-molecular species, with no discrete metallic molecules."

https://socratic.org/questions/5659a26711ef6b44c7603857

https://study.com/academy/lesson/metallic-bonding-the-electron-sea-model-why-metals-are-good-electrical-conductors.html