Gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) are inert in nature just as metallic gold whose atomic weight is 79 kDa. Au NPs owing to its chemical, physical and optical properties with a rich history since ancient times and an intense future in the field of biological and chemical sciences quenching the solution for medicinal problems as catalyst, cell markers, drug delivery tools etc. [1].

   Gold nanoparticles appear in ruby red color due to a phenomenon called Surface Plasmon Resonance, which was first explained by Mie by solving Maxwell equations [2]. The surface plasmon resonance is due to the resonance of incoming light with the surface electrons of nanoparticles that reflects light at the visible spectrum of wavelength of around 520 nm. The surface plasmon resonance is not effective in nanoparticles of size less than 2 nm due to the quantum size effect [3]. Gold nanoparticles of different shapes such as spherical, oblong, rod etc., can be synthesized by altering the method of preparation and parameters. Concentrations of reagents, temperature, pH, pressure, time of reaction are some of the important parameters, which need to be controlled for the synthesis of gold nanoparticles [4].

References

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Citation

Citation: Debajit Borah. “Gold Nanoparticles: Chemistry and Antimicrobial Potentials".Acta Scientific Biotechnology 1.2 (2020): 01-02.

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Copyright: © 2020 Debajit Borah. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.