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Some cool news about gold has come out recently; not that it’s a “great hedge against inflation” or that the “latest Monster cables have gold connectors for BLAZING SPEED!” Instead, it’s some news about nanotechnology: researchers have been working on new applications for gold nanorods. At the same time, a report very recently came out about medieval church windows, and their usage of gold particulates to purify the air in the churches they decorated. It seems early forges, without fully understanding it, used a coating of gold to soak up sunlight. In this energized state, the gold particles would eliminate volatile and toxic compounds in the air. Personally, the medieval usage of gold sounds more fantastic to me than nanorods, if you can believe it.
Unfortunately, the article about gold nanorods over at PhysOrg.com doesn’t delve into the details about manufacturing them, and only briefly touches on potential uses, so it falls to me to do some explaining. Gold nanorods, in the form many scientists are focusing on, wouldn’t be building blocks for other objects (like CNTs are), but instead could be delayed-activation transportation vessels or even cancer fighting agents. An appropriate comparison would be to a gel capsule, only this gold ‘gel cap’ would wait until it was activated by doctors outside the body by an infrared light beam. The gold nanorods could contain anything from DNA or RNA to be transported to a specific spot in the body, or, as the gold heats up when excited by infrared light, they could be used to burn off tumors inside the body. Nanorods, in their excited state, also show up brighter in imaging systems, make them very useful for pictures of internal organs.
Speaking of excitement, it’s impossible to know if the medieval forgers who plated their stain-glass windows with gold nanoparticles did so knowing of the purifying characteristics or if they did so just to create a shimmering surface. Even so, the gold particles they used would absorb the solar radiation and initiate a chemical reaction with airborne pollutants. In the place of these compounds, simple carbon dioxide would be left. Stains, glues, sealants, and other compounds of the time certainly gave off airborne pollutants, but the significance of this and subsequent air purification didn’t take hold until the 19th and 20th centuries.
However, if you’re hoping your gold-plated “grill” will somehow clean your mouth; well, to put it one way, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Pictures courtesy of: PhysOrg, Wikipedia Creative Commons;
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