Postdoc Research Spotlight
Smart amphipiles: hydro/organogelators for in situ reduction of gold
Postdoctoral research fellow, Praveen Kumar Vemula, Ph.D. and Professor George John, Ph.D.
ChemComm, 2218-2220, Number 21, June 4, 2006.
Recent research of Praveen Kumar Vemula (postdoc) and George John at the Department of Chemistry, the City College of New York has developed a novel urea containing gels which could generate gold nanoparticles and stabilize them in the assembly, appeared as a cover story of the Junr 4, 2006 issue of ChemComm, the Royal Society of Chemistry Journal. They have used the molecular gels to prepare and stabilize gold nanoparticles by in situ reduction, without the help of any external reducing agents. Importantly, after reduction of gold, the gel properties remain intact, entrapping the gold nanoparticles in the supramolecular assemblies. The morphology of nanoparticles embedded gels resembles to the New York City skyline. The team believes that these materials should provide opportunities for the development of nanostructured-advanced materials from the conjugates of gels and metal nanoparticles, which may uncover applications in the promising field of supramolecular devices.
