Archive for the ‘General’ Category
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March 8th, 2010
Colliding gold creates new matter
A never-before seen particle, called an anti-hypertriton, has been created for the first time during experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) on Long Island, New York. Particles of gold were collided just short of the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) and more than 100 million collisions were made to collect the data. The matter created during the experiments is believed to have been in existence immediately after the creation of the universe – the so-called “Big Bang”.
Unfortunately, we’re a bit short of particles physicists here at the WGC, so if you’d like to read more the work is available here as a science advanced online publication.
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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 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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January 27th, 2010
Nanopartz expansion
Nanopartz, the US-based company who specialise in the production and supply of gold nanoparticles, are planning on expanding their operations and staff headcount significantly over the next 5 years having recently moved into new purpose-built facilities in Loveland, CO. I was fortunate enough to have a tour of the new labs at the end of last year, and was impressed by the facilities which incorporate both new R&D labs and a large production area.
We’ve blogged before about some of the great products Nanopartz have developed – take a look at their catalogue for a full list.
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January 8th, 2010
Fancy a chat?
Many of you will know that as part of itspromotional activities the World Gold Council helps to matchmake and link those with new gold-based technologies with potential end users and manufacturers. Our knowledge of the world of gold science and technology means that if you have a question, or would like assistance in this area, we can offer help, relevant advice and technical or business contacts. As part of our activities we exhibit promising technologies at international trade shows and exhibitions. If you want to meet us in person, these are the events we’ll definitely be at in 2010.
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December 31st, 2009
Drinkable gold…!
A fascinating paper has been published in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal concerning drinkable gold, which in ages long past was used as an elixir to preserve youth. The article was penned by a team of French scientists and medics, and describes their analysis of the remains of Diane de Poitiers, a 16th courtesan and mistress of King Henri II of France. Dianes remains were shown to have unusually high levels of gold, something they say would only be possible on ingesting significant quantities of the metal…We love identifying new uses of gold here at the WGC, but certainly wouldn’t recommend drinking such large quantities of it – take a look at our scientific homepage for some alternative uses instead!
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December 21st, 2009
New Book – Gold Science and Applications
I’m excited to announce that a new book ‘Gold – Science and Applications’ has now been published.
There have been many excellent books written on certain aspects of the science and technology of gold, most notably the book of the Hanau gold conference, held in 1996 (“Gold. Progress in Chemistry, Biochemistry and Technology”, edited by Hubert Schmidbaur and published in 1999) and there are several new books covering specific sectors of gold science e.g. on catalysis, chemistry and nanotechnology (see here). However, for those seeking a broader reference source on gold and covering all technical sectors, the most appropriate book on gold, Gold Usage by Bill Rapson and Theo Groenewald, was published over 30 years ago in 1978. The world of gold has changed considerably since then. A few years ago Chris Corti and I believed it was time for an updated book that reflects the more recent developments.
With the co-operation of some of the leading experts in their field, we have attempted to produce a book that is a worthy successor to ‘Rapson’ and to provide an authoritive source of information. We have attempted to cover all the main scientific areas as well as the main areas of application. In some cases this has required some very detailed scientific chapters; other fields require less specific detail and have focused more on the practical application. In addition, to help readers place this science and technology in the context of a much wider gold market, a chapter on the supply, demand and pricing of gold is included. Taken together, our aim for the book is to appeal to both those working in academia and industry.
If you are interested, your can read more and purchase it here .
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December 18th, 2009
Chemistry World’s elemental countdown….
The RSC’s countdown to Christmas focuses on a daily podcast about a specific element. Yesterday it was gold’s turn here…..
Trevor Keel
Richard Holliday
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