This colored precious metal can help with environmental protection, scientists say

Oct 26, 2012 18:31 GMT  ·  By
Scientists manufacture green gold, argue the technology can have environmental benefits
   Scientists manufacture green gold, argue the technology can have environmental benefits

A team of researchers working with the University of Southampton have recently made is public news that, as part of their latest investigations in the field of nanotechnology-enabled materials, they have managed to change the color of gold.

Thus, they succeeded in producing red and green gold, simply by toying with the ways in which this precious metal reflects light.

As these scientists explain, the colors we happen to come across throughout the course of our lives are in fact the result of the light's interaction with various objects.

Therefore, changing the way in which various items absorb light can ultimately lead to a change in the colors they display.

Professor Nikolay Zheludev explains how, “This is the fundamental principle we have exploited in this project. By embossing metals with patterns only around 100 nanometres across, we’ve found that we can control which wavelengths of light the metal absorbs and which it reflects.”

“This is the first time the visible colour of metal has been changed in this way,” he went on to state.

In case anyone was wondering how it is exactly that this scientific breakthrough can translate into beneficial effects in terms of environmental protection, the answer is quite simple.

Those wishing to manufacture colored pieces of jewelry and the like will no longer have to resort to dyeing precious metals.

This is because this technology can also be used when dealing with other metals such as silver and aluminum, which can from this moment on be made to drastically change their appearance without the need for various potentially harmful chemical compounds to be employed in the process.

“We’ve filed a patent application to cover our work, and we’re currently talking to a number of organisations about taking our breakthrough towards commercialization,” professor Nikolay Zheludev said.

Apparently, the findings of this investigation could also be used to make banknotes that would be considerably more difficult to forge.