INSTITUTUL NAŢIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE Str. Donath 65-103, 400293, Cluj-Napoca, România Tel: +40-264-584037; Fax: +40-264-420042 Email: itim@itim-cj.ro, web: www.itim-cj.ro

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Design by MM

Summary

The aim of the present proposal is to synthesize and characterize some ¹⁵N labelled amino acids in order to determine the structure of the nanoassemblies formed by functionalizing colloidal gold with L-amino acids. We want to study the core (gold nanoparticle) and the shell (L-amino acids adsorbed on the metal) of these nanostructures, as well as the interactions between them. If the study of the gold nanoparticles can be easily achieved using microscopic techniques, to obtain detailed information about the structure of organic molecules adsorbed on metal (in particular information about the spatial arrangement and the type of intra and intermolecular interactions), is often a challenge for researchers because of scale and small amounts of analyzed molecules. Under these circumstances, besides the usual analytical techniques used for the characterization of nanostructures (UV-VIS, IR, XPS, SERS, cyclic voltammetry, etc) we will use NMR spectroscopy and molecular modeling. We consider that ¹⁵N NMR spectra are necessary to obtain a complete characterization of amino acids-functionalized nanostructures. Use of isotope ¹⁵N will simplify the structural analysis of the organic fragment adsorbed on metal (better identification of NMR signals), and also the study of metal-amino acid interface (-NH2 group binds to metal). The synthesis of ¹⁵N labelled L-amino acids can be considered expensive. We intend to solve this problem by using as raw material a DL-amino acid (cost 1-2 eur/ 1g), instead of the alpha-keto acid (approximate cost 80-90/ 1g). Consequently, both theoretical and experimental investigations will be performed in order to develop an efficient oxidative deamination method of amino acid racemic mixtures.