The microscopic characteristics of soot particulate matter (PM) in gas turbine exhaust are critical for an accurate assessment of the potential impacts of the aviation industry on the environment and human health. The morphology and internal structure of soot particles emitted from a CFM 56-7B26/3 turbofan engine were analyzed in an electron microscopic study, down to the nanoscale, for ∼ 100%, ∼ 65%, and ∼ 7% static engine thrust as a proxy for takeoff, cruising, and taxiing, respectively. Sampling was performed directly on transmission electron microscopy (TEM) grids with a state-of-the-art sampling system designed for nonvolatile particulate matter. The electron microscopy results reveal that ∼ 100% thrust produces the highest amount of soot, the highest soot particle volume, and the largest and most crystalline primary soot particles with the lowest oxidative reactivity. The opposite is the case for soot produced during taxiing, where primary soot particles are smallest and most reactive and the soot amount and volume are lowest. The microscopic characteristics of cruising condition soot resemble the ones of the ∼ 100% thrust conditions, but they are more moderate. Real time online measurements of number and mass concentration show also a clear correlation with engine thrust level, comparable with the TEM study. The results of the present work, in particular the small size of primary soot particles present in the exhaust (modes of 24, 20, and 13 nm in diameter for ∼ 100%, ∼ 65% and ∼ 7% engine thrust, respectively) could be a concern for human health and the environment and merit further study. This work further emphasizes the significance of the detailed morphological characteristics of soot for assessing environmental impacts.

Defect-free mismatched heterostructures on Si substrates are produced by an innovative strategy. The strain relaxation is engineered to occur elastically rather than plastically by combining suitable substrate patterning and vertical crystal growth with compositional grading. Its validity is proven both experimentally and theoretically for the pivotal case of SiGe/Si(001).

Engineered nanoparticle (ENP) life cycles are strongly dependent on the life-cycle of the nanoenhanced products in which they are incorporated. An important phase for ENP associated with textiles is washing. Using a set of liquid and powdered commercially available detergents that span a wide range of different chemistries, washing studies were performed with one "standard" nanoparticle suspended in wash solution to systematically investigate (changes to) particle size distribution, dissolution, reprecipitation (i.e., "new" particle formation), and complexation to particulate matter. Au ENPs were used as a "tracer" through the system. TEM and EDX analysis were performed to observe morphological and chemical changes to the particles, and single-particle ICP-MS was used to build a size distribution of particles in solution. Varying the washing solution chemistry was found to dictate the extent and rate of dissolution, particle destruction, surface chemistry change(s), and new particle formation. Detergent chemistry, dominated by oxidizing agents, was a major factor. The detergent form (i.e., powder vs liquid) was the other decisive factor, with powder forms providing available surfaces for precipitation and sorption reactions. Control experiments with AgNO3 indicated metallic Ag particles formed during the washing process from dissolved Ag, implying not all Ag-NPs observed in a textile washing study are indicative of released Ag-ENPs but can also be the result of sequential dissolution/reduction reactions.

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