Archive for February, 2010
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February 26th, 2010
Nanosphere in the MIT Technology Review
The Technology Review, published by MIT, is a great source of information on new innovations in a range of fields including energy, materials and medicine. In the latest issue Nanosphere, the US-based diagnostics company, features on a couple of occasions. Firstly, the company has been selected by the review as one of the world’s most innovative companies in their TR50 award. This is a significant award, placing Nanosphere in the company of various corporate giants such as DuPont, GlaxoSmithKline, Google & Apple. Their gold-based technology, called the Verigene system, has also been highlighted with a nice breakdown of the components.
Congratulations to Nanosphere on this notable award
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February 24th, 2010
A new gold centre of excellence?
On the way back to London from the Nano Tech 2010 event in Tokyo I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of days in the city of Yantai, which is situated in Shandong Province, China. Back in 2008 the World Gold Council supported the work of Caixia Qi, a professor of chemistry at the local university, for her exciting work in the field of gold catalysis. Her group is making great progress in identifying stable, highly effective gold catalysts for a range of applications based around the oxidation of carbon monoxide.The region is steeped in gold, quite literally. The area is dotted with gold mines, and is home to some of China’s largest gold mining companies. Everywhere you look the chinese symbol for gold (shown above) is prominent – it really is quite something.
During my brief stay, I met the president of the Yantai Gold Bureau and senior representatives of both the Shandong Zhaojin group (one of the largest gold mining companies in China) and Yantai University. The purpose of these meetings was to discuss the potential of forming a centre of excellence at Yantai University for research into new scientific and technological uses of gold. It transpired that all parties were fully supportive of the venture, including local government, meaning the centre will proceed under Professor Qi’s stewardship at the university.
This is a most exciting venture, bringing together considerable resource and expertise in the field. Here at the WGC we applaud the hard work and tenacity of Professor Qi in bringing the centre of excellence ever closer to fruition, and look forward to building on our already strong relationship in the future.
Update, 25th Feb 2010. Below is a picture of our delegation visiting the fantastic local gold musuem, where we all were able to pick up a 12.5kg bar of pure gold!
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February 22nd, 2010
Gold Demand Trends
Last week saw the release of WGC’s Gold Demand Trends publication reporting on gold demand for Q4 2009. In the fourth quarter, gold demand for industrial and dental applications recorded its third consecutive quarter-onquarter improvement and its first annual gain in more than two years. Demand totalled 99.7 tonnes, 11% higher than the fourth quarter of 2008. Nevertheless, demand in 2009 was down 16% on 2008 levels. Electronics demand, which for most of the last 18 months has been a severe casualty of the global economic crisis, rebounded strongly in Q4, jumping 25% relative to year earlier levels in a very positive indication that restocking of inventory is taking place on the back of a more optimistic economic outlook. Read more here.
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February 19th, 2010
Semiconductor Packaging News
Over the last few weeks we kicked-off the debate about gold vs copper bonding wire in semiconductor packaging (see here and here).
Semiconductor Packaging News have just featured this interview with me.
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February 17th, 2010
NanoComposix – innovating solutions
Regular readers have probably worked out by now that we love to see gold being used in innovative and useful ways. The San Diego-based outfit NanoComposix are achieving just this, with a number of exciting R&D programmes running alongside their core business of supplying high specification nanoparticles to industry.
The company’s R&D programme is particularly robust, with a number of different projects currently ongoing. One which caught my eye was the use of gold nanoparticle matrices for MALDI-MS tissue imaging. This work has the potential to enhance the detection, identification, and analysis of small biomolecules directly from tissue surfaces.
If anyone reading wants to get in touch with the company feel free to contact me, or go to them directly.
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February 15th, 2010
Optical radiation into electrical current
According to this press release, new research has demonstrated the ability to turn light into electrical current using a gold-based nanoscale system. The study, published in the current issue of the journal ACS Nano, describes a system - an array of nano-sized gold – that responds to electromagnetic waves by creating surface plasmons. These induce and project electrical current, a bit like photovoltaic solar cells. The picture here shows the material described in the study. -
February 12th, 2010
Gold for good – a new article from the WGC
Yesterday we released a new publication written by the World Gold Council and Cientifica called ‘Gold for good – gold and nanotechnology in the age of innovation’. The article, which is freely available on both the WGC and Cientifica websites, discusses the past, present and future of gold-based nanotechnology, focusing on key areas in medicine, the environment and technology.I am attending the 2010 Nanotech Japan event in Tokyo next week where I will be launching the article, and will follow this with a trip to the ACS spring meeting in California towards the end of March. Feel free to drop me a line if you are attending either event, I’d be happy to discuss any aspect of the WGCs activities, including our funding and investment programmes.
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February 10th, 2010
Another nanogold start-up
This news release describing the award by The University of Maryland’s Industrial Partnerships Program of $174,420 (for developing a polymer coating for gold nanorods that enables them to survive biological conditions) has alerted me to the fact that there is a new company supplying gold nanorods; start-up company NanoRods LLC. Great to see new companies entering this market….
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February 8th, 2010
Gold nanoparticles and theranostics
Theranostics is a term which many of you may not be familiar with, but it describes much sought after combinations of diagnostic and therapeutic processes. Traditionally, diagnostics and therapeutics are quite separate – if you are feeling unwell, you will visit your GP who will diagnose your illness (with a blood test, for example) and then prescribe the relevant treatment. Combining these two activities offers considerable benefits – speed of treatment, improved patient management/compliance and cost. Examples of theranostics currently on the market include Genentech’s Herceptin and Novartis’ Gleevec.
With this in mind I was fascinated to read this paper, recently published in the journal Nanotechnology. The team, working in the US and Europe, report the development of so-called ‘plasmonic nanobubbles’ (PNBs). These PNBs are effectively tunable and transient probes based around gold nanoparticles. The authors describe how such nanobubbles may potentially be used in 1) non-invasive imaging , 2) controlled-release, intra-cellular delivery and 3) selective and guided cell and tissue damage – true ‘theranostic’ potential!
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February 5th, 2010
Oxidized gold thin films
This is an area of research I wasn’t previously familiar with…oxidised thin films. They are claimed to have been shown to function as a direct drop-in replacement for the normal indium tin oxide anode in high-performance flexible organic light-emitting diodes fabricated on plastic substrates (as shown). The authors of this research claim the thin films offer a new materials technology for roll-to-roll processing of next-generation flexible organic optoelectronics. Which could be used in applications such as solid-state lighting. Promising stuff….
Trevor Keel
Richard Holliday
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