A potentially cheaper and more effective way of cleaning wastewater has been discovered by scientists
at Nazarbayev University and the University of Brighton researching nanotechnology [1]. It is well
established that when particles are reduced to the nanoscale unexpected effects occur. Silver, for example,
interacts with mercury ions in a fixed ratio of atoms (stoichiometry), typically 2:1, which presents a limit
that has never been exceeded. In this project we used an alternative chemical procedure based on modified
quartz sand to immobilise silver nanoparticles (NPs) with control over their size. We found that when the
size of the silver NPs decreased below 35 nm the amount of mercury ions reacting with silver increased
beyond the long-held limit and rose to a maximum of 1:1.2 for 10 nm sized silver
