Archive for the ‘Space’ 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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November 23rd, 2009
Alkaline fuel cell membranes
Alkaline fuel cells have been around for years. The Space Shuttle fuel cells (and fuel cells used on the Apollo missions before them) have all used alkaline fuel cells. This is interesting for us working in precious metals because the commonly used Nafion fuel cell membrane operates under acid conditions and requires the use of platinum electrocatalysts. However, under alkaline conditions the chemistry of the fuel cell is obviously very different and it means that the platinum group metals are not necessarily the best electrocatalysts in the fuel cell. For example, World Gold Council sponsored work a couple of years ago that showed gold electrocatalysts were very promising alternatives for oxygen reduction in fuel cells operating under alkaline conditions. However, in order to exploit this what is needed is a reliable alkaline alternative to nafion i.e. an anion exchange membrane.
In a recent development Yushan Yan, chemical and environmental engineering professor at the University of California, Riverside, and his team have developed an alkaline membrane, which contains the polymeric ionomer TPQPOH with a tris(2,4,6-trimethoxyphenyl)phosphonium unit. TPQPOH is very soluble in low-temperature water-soluble solvents, and has high ionic conductivity and alkaline stability. The membrane works on the basis of hydroxide ion exchange rather than hydrogen ion exchange. We’ll be keeping an eye on this development and what it may mean for gold in fuel cells…..
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October 19th, 2009
Lisa and gold
Credit: NASA
It’s amazing the range of uses they find for gold….. LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, is a joint NASA–ESA mission to observe astrophysical and cosmological sources of gravitational waves. LISA detects gravitational waves by measuring the change in separation between freely floating test masses. The test masses are gold-platinum alloy cubes; they weigh 2 kg, and have sides of 4.6 cm. Under drag-free operation, the test masses fall freely in space, and provide reference points for the LISA separation measurements. Read more here……
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July 7th, 2009
40th Anniversary of the Moon landings
Courtesy of NASA
Forty years ago this month the Apollo moon landing was completed and a man was on the moon. It seems a good time to remind ourselves of the critical role gold played in this project - the very visual use of a gold foil to protect the landing craft from solar radiation - a detailed explanation of the technical properties of gold that make it critical in these applications is given by this research paper in Gold Bulletin by Langley.
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May 18th, 2009
Gold plating on difficult substrates
An example of the engineering components that require precision optical gold coatings
The story of Epner Technologies is a fascinating one. Founded in 1910 it is now one of the world’s leading hi-tech gold plating companies. The company specialises and supplies the US standards body NIST with the standard infrared reflective material.
The company has just announced a new process for achieving blister-free gold plating on some of the more unusual or difficult metals to plate like Titanium, Molybdenum, Tungsten, Magnesium. This allows them to withstand high brazing or soldering temperatures, for applications including coatings for optical and reflective uses in military, defense, aerospace, and medical projects. See here for more….
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March 9th, 2009
Gold Coatings for Space Exploration
The launch of NASA’s Kepler mission this weekend allowed me to see these great pictures of the spacecraft being constructed. As with most other space flight engineering, there is a good deal of gold to be seen! This gold foil appearance is generally representative of a thin gold coating on an underlying polymer substrate.The gold layer is required to protect the instrumentation from solar radiation - a detailed explanation of the technical properties of gold that make it critical in these applications is given by this research paper in Gold Bulletin by Langley.
Although this research paper dates from the 1970′s, it is still a great summary of why gold is so critical to space exploration.
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March 2nd, 2009
My top 3 unusual applications for gold
Last week I was asked to highlight some interesting and unusual applications of gold for our internal newsletter. I thought I would share my thoughts with you …..1. Use of gold implants to lower non-functioning eyelids in the treatment of facial nerve paralysis http://www.iopinc.com/patient_link/suturegroove.asp
2. Use of platinum-gold catalyst material in the space shuttle fuel cell system http://www.platinummetalsreview.com/dynamic/article/view/53-1-55-56
3. Use of a gold catalyst to control mercury emissions from coal-fired power stations http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/coalpower/ewr/mercury/control-tech/upstream.html (this is currently still in trials but looks promising)
All of these applications for gold are in areas we wouldn’t normally associate gold’s use. What’s the most interesting use of gold in your view…….?
Richard Holliday
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