Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category
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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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August 6th, 2009
Gold nanoparticles in photography; Chrysotype
This article, reviewing the links between nanotechnology and art, reminded me of the great work Mike Ware has done in re-igniting interest in the chrysotype – the use of gold nanoparticles to form photographic images. Mike wrote an excellent paper for Gold Bulletin on this subject a couple of years ago:
Chrysotype: Photography in Nanoparticle Gold
The printing of photographs in pure gold, rather than the ubiquitous medium of silver, was first achieved in 1842 by Sir John Herschel, but his innovative ‘chrysotype’ process was soon consigned to obscurity, owing to its expense and uncertain chemistry. In the 1980s some modern coordination chemistry of gold was applied to overcome the inherent problems, enabling an economic, controllable gold-printing process of high quality, which offers unique benefits for specialised artistic and archival photographic purposes. The colour of the gold image depends on the dimensions of the nanoparticles, which are controlled by the parameters of the photochemical process.
Photograph derived from gold nanoparticles
The chrysotype pictures have a unique quality in my opinion
Richard Holliday
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