Jakarta –
Scientists have created the world’s thinnest gold sheet just one atom thick. The leaves are called Goldene. Goldene has significant application potential in carbon dioxide conversion and hydrogen production.
To create this material, researchers used a method that has been used by Japanese blacksmiths for 100 years to separate layers of the precious metal.
Researchers are interested in two-dimensional materials because of their optical, electronic and catalytic properties.
These materials have a large surface area compared to their volume, which indicates that they have different properties than chemically equivalent bulk solids. Many examples of 2D materials have been reported since the discovery of graphene in 2004.
These sheets are mostly made from non-metals or mixed compounds, with single atoms to make it more challenging.
Reporting from Live Science, University at Albany Solid State Chemist Michael Yeung said, “Metals don’t like to be alone because their bonds are decentralized. So metals easily bond and a ‘gathering together.’
“The preparation of a single layer is a remarkable feat because it successfully resists the desire of the metal to bond not only to itself, but also to the other layers,” followed up via email.
Problems faced while making Goldene
Previously, this effort caused problems. Some teams have created single layers of gold atoms based on supporting solids such as silicon carbide coated with graphene. So this layer has a sandwich-like structure, with graphene as the bread and gold as the meat.
The problem is when extracting gold from complex layered solids. This is caused by the gold atoms gathering in nanoparticles as soon as the support is removed.
At the same time, the efforts made by Shun Kashiwaya, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology at Linkӧping University in Sweden and his colleagues, succeeded in separating gold leaf for its first time. They planned to create structures coated with titanium, silicon and carbon, and then covered with a gold surface layer.
The gold particles dissolve into the material over 12 hours, replacing the silicon layer with gold and creating a gold leaf embedded within the solid.
Instead of trying to remove the gold layer, Kashiwaya and the research team carefully removed the hard materials around it so that the gold leaf was not touched.
This method was discovered by Kashiwaya’s colleague, Lars Hultman, a professor at Linkoping University who was doing research on chemical waste.
Completion of the Find the Gold Page
Hultman discovered a 100-year-old method used by Japanese blacksmiths to remove carbide residue in steel. Called Murakami reagent or alkaline potassium ferricyanide, the solution removes the surrounding titanium carbide support, without affecting the gold tone.
The team tested this method with different reaction conditions and waste solution concentrations. The main one is the idea of adding cysteine as a surfactant or chemical that reduces the surface tension of the liquid, stabilizes the separated sheets and prevents the gold atoms from coming together to nanoparticles.
With Goldene’s improved chemical reactivity, Kashiwaya and Hultman believe it could have important applications in chemical reactions to convert carbon dioxide into fuels such as ethanol and methane, as well as water into hydrogen.
“We want to increase the area and yield of gold leaf. With that, we study the basic physical and chemical properties of goldene and improve the synthesis process,” said Kashiwaya.
“We also want to apply this technique to produce other 2D elemental materials besides goldene,” continued Kashiwaya, concluding his explanation.
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2024-05-11 10:00:00
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