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Harvesting Gold Nanoparticles WIth Alfalfa Plants

Posted by timothy on from the buckwheat's-next dept.

Rocky Mudbutt writes: "An international research team from the University of Texas-El Paso (UTEP) and Mexico advanced the work at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL). Ordinary alfalfa plants are being used as miniature gold factories that one day could provide the nanotechnology industry with a continuous harvest of gold nanoparticles. Alfalfa extracts gold from the medium and stores it in the form of nanoparticles -- specks of gold less than a billionth of a meter across according to a press release from Stanford Linear Accelerator Center."

3 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Profit comparison by coryboehne · · Score: 3, Informative

    When you consider the facts, it would be far more profitable for the average person to cultivate alfalfa to sell as hay, considering the minute amount of gold available in the plant matter, and the fact that a single bale of quality alfalfa hay can sell for 7-10 dollars, it quickly becomes appearant that there is better money in the hay. However the application in computer science is valuable beyond all actual value of the gold. On that note, I wonder exactly how much this should really reduce costs in producing such small particles of gold.

  2. Re:Remember the saying... by PEdelman · · Score: 2, Informative

    From the press release:

    "In this case, alfalfa was chosen as a model plant system for studying the ability of plants to extract gold from various growth media."
    AFAIK alfalfa is a fast-growing and quite easy plant, so it makes sense to use it as a model plant. The entire research was about
    "Will plants make gold nanoparticles?"

    Moreover, the entire meaning of the research was not to harvest gold, but to find a better way to produce these particles, which requires a lot of nast chemicals right now. The alfalfa plants were grown on gold-rich soil.

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  3. This is nano-fabrication, not mineral extraction by Animats · · Score: 5, Informative

    Read the paper. This is a way of fabricating gold nanoparticles, not extracting gold. They grow small amounts of alfalfa in a controlled environment with extra gold in the soil. The gold nanoparticles are useful for some biosensor applications, because they will bond to DNA and can easily be detected.