Interacting with droplets saturated with ACC

Xiaoyue will be working on triggering crystallisation of Amorphous Calcium Carbonate by carefully injecting either a small amount of water or other nucleating agents into the droplets using a needle or a nanopipette (together with Dr Liam Hunter). A direct currect was supplied to the tip of the nanopipette and as a nanoparticle exits the nanopipette it causes a sudden current blockage due to volume exclusion, which in turn results in a sudden change in the voltage within the nanopipette. This technique can be used to introduce nucleating agents to droplets of ACC in a more quantitative and systematic manner.

Figure 1 Photos taken from a polarised optical microscope 0s, 1s, 10s and 1min after the injection of water into the saturated ACC.

Figure 2 (a)shows schematic of a nanoparticle translocation through the nanopipette and (b) shows signal generated from every successful translocation.