Your breath may just turn golden!

| Read time: 3 minute(s)

Your breath may just turn golden! Mumbai It’s shiny, it’s expensive and our moms love it. We are talking about gold, but it can also help us breathe. Indian scientists have developed a golden tree of sorts, which would perform photosynthesis and generate oxygen. Surprised? Well, don’t, because we are going to explain. Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) professor Vivek Polshettiwar has ticketed with yellow metal and changed it into black gold. The team used gold nanoparticles and by rearranging size and gaps between them developed a new material, which has unique properties such as capacity to absorb light and carbon dioxide. Gold does not have these properties, therefore ‘black gold’ is being called a new material. In appearance it is black, hence the name ‘black gold.’ The scientists claim that it can be potentially used for applications ranging from solar energy harvesting to desalinating seawater, it would also create methane which is used in CNG and can help save energy. These findings have been published in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Journal Chemical Science. Fun fact There's enough solar energy hitting the Earth every hour to meet all of humanity's power needs for an entire year. Every ounce of oil, every lump of coal, and every cubic foot of natural gas could be left in the ground if only we could capture one hour's worth of solar energy each year. Whoa!

It’s shiny, it’s expensive and our moms love it. We are talking about gold, but it can also help us breathe. 

Indian scientists have developed a golden tree of sorts, which would perform photosynthesis and generate oxygen. Surprised? Well, don’t, because we are going to explain. Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) professor Vivek Polshettiwar has ticketed with yellow metal and changed it into black gold. The team used gold nanoparticles and by rearranging size and gaps between them developed a new material, which has unique properties such as capacity to absorb light and carbon dioxide. Gold does not have these properties, therefore ‘black gold’ is being called a new material. In appearance it is black, hence the name ‘black gold.’

The scientists claim that it can be potentially used for applications ranging from solar energy harvesting to desalinating seawater, it would also create methane which is used in CNG and can help save energy. 

These findings have been published in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Journal Chemical Science.  


Fun Fact

There's enough solar energy hitting the Earth every hour to meet all of humanity's power needs for an entire year. Every ounce of oil, every lump of coal, and every cubic foot of natural gas could be left in the ground if only we could capture one hour's worth of solar energy each year. Whoa!


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