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November 30 2010
To Make Gold Nanoparticles, Add a Dash of Cinnamon
“Is it just me, or do these gold nanoparticles taste like apple pie?”
Ok, you probably won’t hear that one around the lab (taste-testing the nano-gold is a strict no-no), but researchers have discovered a way to replace the toxic chemicals typically used to make gold nanoparticles with cinnamon.
Researcher Raghuraman Kannan explains in the press release:
“The procedure we have developed is non-toxic,” Kannan said. “No chemicals are used in the generation of gold nanoparticles, except gold salts. It is a true ‘green’ process.”
The cinnamon takes the place of the toxic agents that remove the gold particles from gold salts, explains Popular Science:
There are several ways to produce gold particles, but most involve dissolving chloroauric acid, also called gold salts, in liquid and adding chemicals to precipitate gold atoms. Common mixtures include sodium citrates, sodium borohydride (also used to bleach wood pulp) and ammonium compounds, all of which can be toxic to humans and the environment.
In Kannan’s new procedure, the gold particles are isolated simply by stirring gold salts, cinnamon, and water together at room temperature. What they get out of that recipe is a combination of gold nanoparticles and phytochemicals from the cinnamon.
Gold nanoparticles have potential in many different fields–from medical treatments to electronics–because they can be absorbed by cells, and because they have unique optical and electronic properties. When the researchers tested the particles created by the new process, they found they were safe and non-toxic. The nanoparticles were also able to deliver the phytochemicals to cancer cells, where they could help destroy or image the cells.
It’s important to consider the health and environmental impacts of new technologies, Kannan said in the press release:
“On one hand, you are trying to create a new, useful technology. However, continuing to ignore the environmental effects is detrimental to the progress,” Kannan said.
With so much hype about nanotechnology and how it will change the world, it’s nice to hear about research that’s trying to keep it from harming the world at the same time–even if it might raise prices at Cinnabon.
Related Content:
Discoblog: Did a Guy Find a Cure for Cancer Using Pie Tins and Hot Dogs?
Discoblog: The Tiny Robot that Can Crawl Through Your Veins—And Treat Your Tumors
Discoblog: Nano Snacks! Researchers Say Edible Nanostructures Taste Like Saltines
80beats: Golden Nanocages Could Deliver Cancer Drugs to Tumors
DISCOVER: World’s Tiniest Scale Can Weigh Individual Molecules
Image: flickr / pamramsey
September 03 2010
Nano Snacks! Researchers Say Edible Nanostructures Taste Like Saltines
We’ve asked tiny nanostructures to thwart counterfeiters, heal wounds, and boost computing power. Now, we want to eat them. Researchers have made “all-natural metal-organic frameworks”–and hope their creations’ edible frames may find use storing small molecules in foods and medical devices.
Though researchers have made similar metal-organic frameworks since 1999, most of the structures require chemicals from crude oil. As described in a recently published Angewandte Chemie paper, this team has devised a cheaper method employing starch molecules leftover from corn production.
The trick was to make a substance crystallize as a highly ordered, symmetrical, porous framework. Getting tiny symmetrical structures from non-symmetrical natural ingredients had seemed unlikely, but the team found the perfect molecule cages, using a special type of sugar (gamma-cyclodextrin) from the cornstarch and potassium salt. After dissolving gamma-cyclodextrin and potassium salt in water, they crystallized them to form the nano storage cubes.
Despite the sugar and salt combo, the nanostructures are not that tasty, team member Ronald Smaldone says in a press release:
“They taste kind of bitter, like a Saltine cracker, starchy and bland…. But the beauty is that all the starting materials are nontoxic, biorenewable and widely available…”
We also can’t imagine they’re that filling.
Related content:
Discoblog: How Butterfly Wing Patterns Could Thwart Counterfeiting Crooks
80beats: Nanoparticles + Stem Cells = Faster Healing Wounds
80beats: “DNA Origami” May Allow Chip Makers to Keep Up With Moore’s Law
80beats: Spitzer Telescope Finds Buckyballs… in Spaaace!
Image: flickr / Kerrie Longo
June 01 2010
How Butterfly Wing Patterns Could Thwart Counterfeiting Crooks
These researchers want to take their butterflies to the bank. They’ve found a way to mimic the nanostructures responsible for giving butterfly wings their colors, and they think butterfly-inspired money designs might hinder counterfeiters.
“We still need to refine our system, but in future we could see structures based on butterflies wings shining from a £10 note or even our passports,” said Mathias Kolle in a university press release. Kolle researched the butterfly’s wing structure with Ullrich Steiner and Jeremy Baumberg at the University of Cambridge.
Butterfly wings don’t use traditional pigment for their flair. Instead, they rely on the way light bounces off tiny multilayer structures on their wings. These micro- and nanostructures come in a variety of shapes (see the “egg carton-like” scanning electron microscope picture below), and scientists have long had inklings as to how different structures result in different colors. But Kolle and colleagues have gone one step further, managing the elusive task of copying this craft.
They studied the swallowtail butterfly (Papilio blumei), and rebuilt the butterfly’s stunning molecular-scaled wing structures. Nature Nanotechnology recently published their findings and a description of their techniques.
Not using pigment may be a way to keep butterflies safe, as the color reflecting from those tiny structures appears differently to different viewers, perhaps camouflage green to predators, but bright blue to mates.
Adopting their techniques could also protect money, if researchers figure out ways to use their wing-mimicing structures to encrypt information in optical signatures. And that means that copying currency would produce a lot more butterflies in counterfeiters’ stomachs.
Related content:
Discoblog: Video: The Delicate Flutter of Robotic Butterfly Wings
Discoblog: A Butterfly’s Moustache Leads Scientists to a New Species
Not Exactly Rocket Science: Parasitic wasps hitchhike on butterflies by smelling for chemical chastity belts
80beats: A Near-Extinct Blue Butterfly Flourishes Again, Thanks to a Red Ant
DISCOVER: The Calculating Beauty of Butterflies (photo gallery)
Images: Mathias Kolle, University of Cambridge
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