The BBC reports that quantum dots can be made from extracts
An international team willTea ExtractMixing with compounds to produce organic quantum dots confirmed that such quantum dot manufacturing processes are cheaper, simpler, and have fewer toxic side effects. More surprisingly, quantum dots also inhibited the growth of lung cancer cells in experiments. Quantum dots are tiny nanoparticles (less than 10 nanometers wide), only one-thousandth the width of a human hair. Due to their special optical properties, they have a wide range of commercial applications, from sensors, solar cells, televisions to mobile phone chargers. Even in the medical field, their fluorescent properties can be used to help physicians accurately "illuminate" tumors.
The problem is that the process of producing quantum dots is not so beautiful, such as a colloidal synthesis method, in which the mediated solution is often composed of dangerous biochemical substances. But new research by an international team from Swansea University in the United Kingdom and the K.S. Rangasamy Institute of Technology in India shows that we can make quantum dots from waste tea leaves, and the process is more non-toxic and simple. Known to contain a variety of compounds, including polyphenols, amino acids, vitamins, and antioxidants, scientists now mix tea extracts with cadmium sulfate (CdSO4) and sodium sulfide (Na2S) to create cadmium quantum dots; researchers then applied quantum dots to imaging lung cancer cells to test how well they "illuminate" tumors.
The team soon found that the quantum dots made from tea extracts could be a non-toxic alternative to the quantum dots made from chemicals, and both had the same excellent fluorescence properties; however, the team was most surprised that they did not expect these quantum dots to inhibit the growth of lung cancer cells, because the quantum dots penetrated into the nanopores of cancer cells, causing 80% of cancer cells to die.
Compared with quantum dots made from chemicals, making quantum dots from tea extracts is a simpler, cheaper, and less toxic method. According to the BBC, the cost of chemically synthesized quantum dots falls between 250 and 500 pounds per microgram, but the cost of organic quantum dots is only 10 pounds per microgram. It also has the function of inhibiting cancer cells, and it is not necessary to worry about poisoning healthy cells when applied in the medical field.
Lung cancer is one of the diseases with the lowest survival rate among common cancers. Although the new organic quantum dots currently only inhibit cancer cells in a laboratory dish, it may still be a few years before they can be commercially used. However, the research team is actively looking for an enzyme that can deliver quantum dots to live cancers. If all goes well, human clinical trials can be carried out in about 2 years, and maybe in 10 years we can get a new treatment method.
