Thursday, 20th October 2005 (4238 views)

Scientists have discovered that gold nanoparticles can be used to drive down the temperature and cost of an important and widely used chemical reaction, reports top scientific journal Nature.

A Cardiff University research team has found that gold nanoparticles, measuring only 25 nanometres across, can split oxygen atoms, thereby facilitating oxidation reactions.

Useful organic products are created when oxygen atoms and carbon compounds combine, but chemists have to first split the two atoms that comprise oxygen.

Up until now, carrying out this difficult process has relied on harsh oxidants like peracetic acid, explains Graham Hutchings, whose team made the breakthrough in collaboration with Johnson Matthey.

However, the gold nanoparticles allow for an environmentally solution. They render solvents unnecessary and work under relatively light gas pressure and the low temperature of 60 to 80 degrees C.

"The chemical industry loves to take the temperature down because energy is such a large cost," commented Richard Holliday, head of the World Gold Council's industrial sector.

The new catalyst is constructed from gold particles attached to carbon motes and the oxidation reaction is believed to occur on the interface between the two substances.

The catalyst is capable of making epoxides, valuable chemicals comprised of oxygen and carbon, which could have important implications for the chemical industry.

Although it is possible to use other metals such as palladium, according to Masatake Haruta, a gold chemist at Tokyo Metropolitan University, gold is more versatile in chemical processes.

 

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