The precious metals – gold and silver – apart from being used in jewellery, can also be used as capsules to deliver drugs to the target points in the human body and also help in diagnosis of diseases.
Another interesting feature of gold and silver is that these precious metals do not glitter at all stages. Its nano particles are black in colour and the sub-nanoclusters of these precious metals show intense emission of blue, red and green light in the visible range.
Presenting the details of the study on gold and silver sub-nanoclusters at the 96th Indian Science Congress on Monday, T. Pradeep of the Chennai-based IIT’s Department of chemistry and sophisticated analytical instrument facility said, “These sub-nanoclusters can be used as capsules to deliver drugs to the target points in the human body. This would avoid surgery or oral intake of medicines, much of which may not reach the target points. Such particles are bio-compatible and hence there would be no related adverse consequences.”
According to Pradeep, these sub-nanoclusters, being luminous can also help in diagnosis of diseases inside the body.