Figure 6

Illustrations of adsorption properties of MNBs in wastewater and of their quenching features. (a) The original wastewater (WW) includes both impurities (small dots) and several amounts of MNBs (B). Since a MNB sweeps impurities around it on the surface, the swept area is less polluted (white area around B) and the surface of the MNB is covered by impurities (small dots). When this solution is quenched and the replica samples are prepared on area (b), no MNBs with homogeneously dispersed impurities were observed. We can observe the TEM image of (b') fine particles homogeneously dispersing with a small ice crystallite (I) formed in the quenching process (related to Figure 4). In contrast, when the replica sample was prepared on area (c) including the MNB surrounded by purified water (PW), the observed TEM image was (c') the MNB adsorbing fine particles on its surface in smooth ice crystallites (related to Figure 5).