{"id":193,"date":"2014-10-07T11:33:31","date_gmt":"2014-10-07T15:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/azimmer\/?page_id=193"},"modified":"2026-03-19T08:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T12:25:09","slug":"natural-nanopores","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/azimmer\/research\/natural-nanopores\/","title":{"rendered":"Natural Nanopores"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<section class=\"fullwidth-text-block\">\r\n\t<div class=\"container px-0 pt-5\">\r\n\t\t<div class=\"row align-items-start\">\r\n\t\t\t<div class=\"col-12\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Natural Nanopores<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">An exploration of natural mineral nanopores and their potential for interaction with natural dissolved organic matter<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although subsurface microbes are physiologically able to decompose most natural and contaminant organic matter, some fraction of soil and sediment organic matter is preserved over millions of years.\u00a0 It is likely that organic matter is protected from microbial degradation through some type of interaction with mineral surfaces.\u00a0\u00a0 However, the mechanism responsible for this protection is not known.\u00a0 Recently, it has been proposed that organic matter is protected by occlusion within mineral nanopores (pores 2-50 nm) that are smaller than both the microbes themselves, and the enzymes they exude to breakdown organic molecules.\u00a0 Previous research by the PI using synthetic minerals has shown that a variety of small organic compounds can be strongly sorbed to the internal surfaces of nanopores and that larger organic compounds such as enzymes are excluded from the pores. Although the feasibility of the so-called \u2018nanopore protection hypothesis\u2019 was demonstrated, the \u2018real-world\u2019 importance of mineral nanopores in organic matter preservation is still unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here, an investigation of the importance of mineral nanopores to the cycling of organic matter in soils, sediments and groundwater environments is proposed.\u00a0 First, evidence for the widespread natural occurrence of mineral nanopores in these environments will be gathered.\u00a0 Second, experiments will be carried out to show that organic compounds can be sorbed within these natural nanopores.\u00a0 Further, by defining the type of organic compounds (size and chemical character) that can be adsorbed in different types of mineral nanopores (size and chemical character), one can predict the environmental effects of mineral nanopores on organic matter cycling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These experiments will serve as a \u2018proof of concept\u2019 from which to design further explorations (grant proposals) of natural nanoporous materials and their environmental effects.\u00a0 This research is interdisciplinary and of a fundamental nature.\u00a0 Important implications and applications of this research can be found in widely ranging fields such as global carbon cycling and climate change, microbial ecology, petroleum geochemistry, soil science and agriculture, and contaminant remediation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The University of Florida, as well as the National Science Foundation, has identified nanoscale science and engineering as a research focus area.\u00a0 Requests for proposals on the subjects of nanoscale processes in the environmental and nanogeoscience have been made and will continue to be made in the future.\u00a0 But while some are beginning to look at the importance of nanoparticles in the environment, the presence of nanopores and the influence of nanoscale processes in nanopores is a neglected area of study though its importance may be great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"size-full alignleft is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/azimmer\/files\/Photos-Science\/nanopores.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"464\" height=\"634\" src=\"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/azimmer\/files\/Photos-Science\/nanopores.gif\" alt=\"nanopores\" class=\"wp-image-195\" style=\"width:464px;height:auto\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\r\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n<\/section>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":0,"parent":22,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"featured_post":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-193","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/azimmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/azimmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/azimmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/azimmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/azimmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/azimmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":847,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/azimmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/193\/revisions\/847"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/azimmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/azimmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}