IIT team with a Midas touch, on a nano-scale

[InfleXion]

It sounds like alchemy, but it's not even though it could have a similar outcome. My first thought was that this would bring the GSR closer to parity since obviously turning silver into gold is preferable at today's prices. But since this could likely be done with even cheaper metals, it might reduce prices all around. Since this will have added labor cost baked in, I'm not sure how it might pan out. Something to keep an eye on.

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/scienc ... 330312.ece

IIT team with a Midas touch, on a nano-scale

A team from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has successfully transformed nanoscale pieces of silver to gold and gold to silver by replacing their atoms one at a time. The shape and structure of these materials before and after transformation are identical, although they are completely different chemically. The results were published on November 10 in the journal Nature Communications.

“This is like transforming a silver Nataraja sitting on your table to a gold equivalent, by atom-by-atom changes. Although this is possible only in the nanoscale, that too with limited systems today, there is a hope that such changes can occur in the macroscopic world in future,” says Prof. T. Pradeep, from the Department of Chemistry, IIT Madras, and the corresponding author of the paper. When nanoparticles of gold and silver, which have different mass but identical atomic arrangements, are mixed in solution at room temperature an atom by atom replacement takes place.

Within a few minutes the silver nanoparticle becomes a gold nanoparticle and the gold nanoparticle becomes a silver nanoparticle. Generally, nanoscale materials are more reactive as they have higher energy compared with bulk matter.