Safer Milk With Silver Nanoparticles
So now, science has discovered a way to use silver nanoparticles to detect whether or not milk has been tainted with toxic melamine (see news article below).
This is absolutely awesome news, considering the seriousness of the situation with melamine-tainted milk, which slowly kills anyone who inadvertently drinks it by destroying kidney function.
Unfortunately, certain environmentalist groups have been trying to force the EPA to heavily regulate silver nanoparticles, in spite of the fact that they’re completely harmless.
Excessive Regulation Hinders Breakthroughs
I’d like to point out that incredibly beneficial technological breakthroughs like this simply cannot be achieved under excessive government regulation.
There comes a point at which we need to tell the fear-mongering “sky is falling” environmentalists to sit down and shut up, and let science and industry discover and innovate like they’re supposed to, for the greater good of humanity!
Silver Nanoparticles to the Rescue!
The use of silver nanoparticles will revolutionize many aspects of business and industry, from providing far safer food and drink processing technology (and cutting way down on food poisoning in the process)…
…to helping prevent unnecessary amputations for diabetics whose wounds get infected and won’t heal…
…to helping mitigate the current epidemic of MRSA infections…
…to aiding the ability of prescription antibiotics to work against drug-resistant pathogens…and much, much more!
Yes, we’ll soon have safer milk with silver nanoparticles. But only if the environmentalists who seek to regulate silver use into oblivion don’t get their way.
– Steve
P.S. Be sure to go to our new Colloidal Silver Secrets Community on Facebook where you can ask questions about colloidal silver usage, post about your personal and family experiences with colloidal silver, use the online Discussion Board, and much more! I look forward to chatting with you there.
Safer milk with silver nanoparticles
http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/ChemScience/Volume/2010/03/safer_milk.asp
10 February 2010
Silver nanoparticles can provide a highly sensitive colorimetric method to detect melamine in infant formula claim Chinese scientists.
The China milk scandal in 2008 when 300,000 infants became victims of melamine, a chemical usually used in fire retardants and fertilizers, contaminated milk and infant formula highlighted the need for the country to improve detection standards for chemical contaminants in foods.
Several improved techniques were developed following the crisis but they involved large specialised equipment, such as mass spectrometers.
Now, Cuiping Han and Haibing Li at the Central China Normal University, Wuhan, have developed a silver nanoparticle sensor that changes colour from yellow to dark green in the presence of melamine. And because the result can be seen with the naked eye, no other specialist lab equipment is required making the test more portable.
High levels of melamine in milk is harmful to children
‘The unique instrument-free detection feature of this colorimetric method could allow for on-site detection of melamine and offers great potential for household diagnostic applications’ say the researchers.
Colometric methods using gold nanoparticles have been tried previously but they require an additional stabilizer to detect the melamine which is difficult to synthesize and limits their practical application, explain Han and Li.
The silver nanoparticles are modified with p-nitroaniline (p-NA) and are easily prepared using commercially available materials. The electron donor-acceptor interaction between the melamine (donor) and p-NA (acceptor) results in aggregation of the silver nanoparticles, causing the colour change and allowing melamine levels as low as 0.1 ppm to be detected in as little as two minutes.
Paolo Ugo, a specialist in nanoelectrochemistry and sensors at the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari, Italy, calls this “a smart application of recent advances in the chemistry of nanoparticles to a very real analytical issue.”
The next step for this sensor is to develop it into a more user-friendly form, such as a test strip or reagent box that it can be used by the general public in their homes, say Han and Li.
Rebecca Brodie
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