Using Cinnamon In the Production of Nanoparticles 126
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists at the University of Missouri used cinnamon to replace almost all toxic chemicals needed for making gold nanoparticles used in electronics and healthcare products. Nanoparticle production requires the use of extremely dangerous and toxic chemicals. While the nanotechnology industry is expected to produce large quantities of useful nanoparticles in the near future, the entire production process could be detrimental to the environment."
EXCELLENT! (Score:1)
*(Yes, I'm aware 'grey goo' is impossible. Shuddup)
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We *are* the grey goo. We're effectively using the chemical by products of one form of nanotechnology (life) to kick start another.
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A World of Goo is definately possible. I just downloaded it from Steam the other day!
Re:EXCELLENT! (Score:4, Funny)
In the heat of competition expect more projects to turn to toast. ...waiting for an Apple-cinnamon edible phone
And now (Score:2)
Cinnamon? (Score:4, Funny)
They should taste my nano-apfelstrudel!
And... (Score:2)
...a pinch of oregano, 'cause you know a little goes a long way.
Hmm, food-embedded electronics? (Score:2)
I think advertisers just creamed themselves.
You got... (Score:5, Funny)
-- You got cinnamon on my gold!
-- You got gold on my cinnamon!
-- Woah, wtf is *that*!?
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I can see it now...
-- You got cinnamon on my gold!
-- You got gold on my cinnamon!
-- Woah, wtf is *that*!?
Mine!
...and so on.
I saw it first.
No you didn't.
Did to. Now let go!
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You're obviously too young to have seen the classic Reese's commercial:
"You got chocolate in my peanut butter!"
"You got peanut butter in my chocolate!"
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I'm not sure I follow, that commercial is a classic.
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21st century alchemy (Score:1, Insightful)
Something tells me that this is going to end like the biofuel scam, where forests are vanishing to produce a more pollutant fuel than gasoline... Killing natural spices to produce gold in some industries' pockets.
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Yeah... just how many cinnamon plantations are there? Land for more cinnamon trees or more gated communities?
Or... we could just deal with overpopulation....
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I happen to have a birthright to drive two ton machines two hours between work and my gated community, thank you very much.
*shows you his birthright certificate* :D
PS: Just because the number key is there it doesn't mean you should use it any time you want to write a number. Save it for the really big numbers - when you use it for a number with three digits or less your perceived IQ drops by roughly 10-15 points per digit less than four - i.e. typing 300 drops your perceived IQ by ten to fifteen points, ty
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I hate to interrupt a well-deserved smackdown, but you'll find any official style guide advocates the switch to numerals for any number over ninety-nine, if it's not a round number. For example, 333, but three hundred. Journalism style guides actually go for any number over ten.
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The future shall prove you wrong, enjoy your poverty or wars over oil.
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when you use it for a number with three digits or less your perceived IQ drops by roughly 10-15 points per digit less than four
Metahumor?
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Nah, just lgw's rule of the internet: every spelling, grammar, or style post must contain a spelling, grammar, or style error.
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Cinnamon and Toxic chemicals (Score:4, Funny)
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Does this mean they'll start putting gold in their Caramel Cinnabons? For what they charge for those things, there ought to be gold in them!
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Its an industrial reagent.
Its a desert topping.
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...and Goldschlager..
The Spice.. Of Course! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The Spice.. Of Course! (Score:4, Funny)
And, of course, he who controls the spice controls the universe!
*buys cinnamon*
Unfortunately... (Score:2)
I hope it's true but: (Score:3, Insightful)
“Our gold nanoparticles are not only ecologically and biologically benign, they are also biologically active against cancer cells,”
A) How can you be benign AND active?.
B) everything is poisonous. It's the dose them makes the poison.
C) I can't see how this process uses no electricity. How does the cinnamon and gold particles get together? how is the cinnamon remove?
D) How much energy will go into harvesting more cinnamon?
I hope is true because Oz. to Oz Cinnamon will be a safer product to use in the process, but it's not magic.
Re:I hope it's true but: (Score:5, Funny)
“Our gold nanoparticles are not only ecologically and biologically benign, they are also biologically active against cancer cells,”
A) How can you be benign AND active?.
B) everything is poisonous. It's the dose them makes the poison.
C) I can't see how this process uses no electricity. How does the cinnamon and gold particles get together? how is the cinnamon remove?
D) How much energy will go into harvesting more cinnamon?
I hope is true because Oz. to Oz Cinnamon will be a safer product to use in the process, but it's not magic.
A: Magic
B: Cinnamon is all natural, and there for only hurts bad things. It's good for your skin too!
C1: Elves, C2: Free Range Hamsters
D: None
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Your post needs more wizards.
Re:I hope it's true but: (Score:4, Funny)
I put on my robe and wizard hat...
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As I read the article, when you mix cinnamon and gold nanoparticles in solution, one of the products is gold nanoparticles. I presume the non-toxic byproduct is cinnamon flavoured water.
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A) The two aren't mutually exclusive, look up the definition of benign. Also consider yoghurt. Active, and benign. It's not malicious or harmful, but it's an active culture.
b) Now you're being pedantic
c) that i'll agree on, unlesss they mean that it doesnt need us to add any and it's using it's own charge or something
D) That's my big concern.
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well it's sure not benign to the cancer cell. I know, see b)
b) I know. The whole article was written like it's a magic process.
d) Not really a big concern for me. If the toxic chemicals are as nasty as others in similar industries, then spending a lot of energy harvesting cinnamon is better then poisoning the water supply . And of course the energy going into make the chemicals and so on.
Re:I hope it's true but: (Score:5, Informative)
I can't see how this process uses no electricity. How does the cinnamon and gold particles get together? how is the cinnamon remove?
Jeeze, did you read the damn thing? They mix gold salts and cinnamon in water and get gold nanoparticles.
There is no electricity because there is no electricity. It's a purely chemical process.
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SO nothing stirs or mixes them? no electricity is used getting them together? separating them? Is there anything need to remove excess heat from the process?
yes I read the article, and it talked like Cinnamon is a magic energy free green process with no real facts.
I cant believe you have never heard of a chemical process creating electricity.
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I hope is true because Oz. to Oz Cinnamon will be a safer product to use in the process, but it's not magic.
I know anything about Australia is always accepted at /., but this one is about scientists at the University of Missouri. This has nothing to do wit Oz.
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Its a big 'O' because I was happy to type it.
you can't unread that!
For the lulz. (Score:1)
Where's Paul? (Score:1)
Let the spice wars begin.
No he isn't! (Score:2)
He's just resting. [wikipedia.org]
Not likely (Score:4, Insightful)
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Exactamundo. Cinnamon isn't exactly expensive unless you're getting something fancy, but it's a lot more expensive than putting some practically-free chemicals into a vat and running some electricity from coal through them.
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Real cinnamon is fairly expensive, cassia is cheap. In the USA cassiabark is often labeled as cinnamon.
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I wonder if there is a practical difference for industrial purposes.
Re:Not likely (Score:5, Informative)
In my area of industry, chemically speaking there is a *HUGE* difference.
True cinnamon works as an insecticide.
Cassiabark extract does NOT.
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The tomato is not the only thing in the genus Solanum, does this mean I should be allowed to sell poisonous fruits as tomatoes?
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Which is why most people use fake cinnamon, cassia. Which is grown in china, so maybe they will use that.
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The two come from the same genus and are extremely similar. This is why cassia can be sold as low-grade "cinnamon" - it is nearly identical to the Sri Lanka variety.
For manufacturing purposes I doubt there is any significant difference.
Re:Not likely (Score:4, Interesting)
Distill the oils of both.
Put a toothpick in each oil sample and let it soak it up.
I'll bet twenty bucks you can hold the cassia in your mouth while the cinnamon one will blister you.
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Ah...cinnamon toothpicks! That takes me back. In junior high I used to make them and sell them at school. Ten cents for one, a quarter for three. I used to shoplift those little vials of cinnamon oil from K-mart. Pour onto a plate, add toothpicks, let soak overnight. Put them into a sandwich baggie the next day and I had enough money to buy ice cream at lunch all week. For extra fun, I'd soak one or two in clove oil and mix them in with the rest.
I've tried relating this story to others before and I
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Definitely a Texas/Louisiana thing, I haven't seen it happen anywhere else.
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Oh wow the same genus, I suggest you substitute the fruit of Solanum atropurpureum for Solanum lycopersicum in your next salad or sandwich.
These two are farther apart then cassia and cinnamon, but those two are not quite the same either, surely not nearly identical. Their coumarin levels are quite different for instance.
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Real Cinnamon is rare and expensive, toxic chemicals usually aren't. Which do you think China's going to decide to use?
The one that consumers are willing to buy...
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If it is anything like the cinnamon case consumers in the EU will have no problem getting the real thing and us Americans will have to order it online and pay through the nose.
Re:Not likely (Score:5, Informative)
For comparison, the entire world's gold production of 2006 [wikipedia.org] was 2,310 tons.
Me thinks that the world risks running out of gold faster than China of cinnamon... but hey, I might be mistaken.
However, on another track, TFA says:
They mixed gold salts with a common spice – cinnamon – and stirred the mixture in water to synthesize gold nanoparticles.
Now, unless one finds a method to obtain gold salts by using plain cooking salt (Ok... I'll make a concession and allow capsicum powder as well), this step may require indeed the use of toxic chemicals.
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Those numbers are completely meaning less to determine when we will run out.
You need to look at total available and compare it to total used over a period of time.
If we need to use 10,000 times the cinnamon then gold, that would change things now, wouldn't it?
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Those numbers are completely meaning less to determine when we will run out.
Theoretically, you are right.
------ In no way the following is intended to be flamebite/troll (at most, karma whoring) -------
It would be advisable, based on this theory and the above poster's estimate for a rate of 20000/1, to invest in cinnamon plantations, but keep the following points in mind:
1. cinnamon is more renewable than the Earth's gold resource - advantage? Yes, suply limited only on short periods of time ("world cinnamon crisis" will be different than "world oil crisis")
2. on long term I r
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Now, unless one finds a method to obtain gold salts by using plain cooking salt (Ok... I'll make a concession and allow capsicum powder as well), this step may require indeed the use of toxic chemicals.
Who said anything about not using toxic chemicals? They used cinnamon to replace "almost all toxic chemicals".
Using nano in the production of nanoposts (Score:1)
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The next major release will include an accurate counter.
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And a one-sentence critique can use the word six.
A bit hypocritical aren't we?
looks like someone discovered Goldschläger (Score:1)
except for the coumarin (Score:2)
Gold? Cinnamon? It's a delicious discovery for science! See, it's not toxic at all, we can drink a ton of it!
Even without the toxic-by-the-ton ethyl-alcohol in Goldschläger, true cinnamon actually contains a small amount of coumarin (used as rat poison in concentrated forms, or processed into a blood thinner for heart surgery patients)...
And of course if Goldschläger cheaped out and uses the "fake" cassia cinnamon, it would actually have even more coumarin...
On the other hand, a Goldschläger challenge seems much less harmful than a cinnamon challenge (a description of which used to be on wikipedia,
As a representative for Wrigley's... (Score:1)
Melange? (Score:1)
Food nerds (Score:1)
Incense and Peppermints . . . (Score:1)
Ha! All cinnamon processes are puny in comparison to my "Incense and Peppermints" process!
From my patent application:
Good sense, innocence, cripplin' and kind.
Dead kings, many things I can't define.
Oh Cajun spice, sweats and blushers your mind.
Incense and peppermints, the color of thyme.
This patent will be more important than the Segway!
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First step in their process: (Score:3)
Make cinnamon into a highly toxic chemical.
The spice must flow! (Score:1)
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meh (Score:2)
The "toxicity" part is bullshit... (Score:5, Informative)
What the article doesn't mention is who made the very first gold nanoparticles, or how they were made.
It was Michael Faraday (yes, that Faraday), who made them using a reducing agent called. . . phosphorus. Horribly toxic, world-destroying . . . Oh, wait, it's safe. Never mind.
There are 80 thousand ways to make AuNPs, the reason the strong reducing agents are usually used is because it's simply a quicker reaction, or because you want them there to activate something else you are sticking to the surface of the nanoparticle.
Now, the part about the cinnamon extracts stabilizing the AuNPs in physiological conditions, that might be more impressive - I'm not familiar with work in that area. But the toxicity part is nothing more than a cry for attention.
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The use of pesticides and fungicides to treat cinnamon trees will still pose an environmental problem perhaps even more so if there is an increased demand. And many of the countries where Cinnamon is grown, probably don't have the same environmental standards than 'Western' countries. That is, pesticides and fungicides that were banned by the EPA 50 years ago might still be used in these countries.
Re:The "toxicity" part is bullshit... (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice; but nowadays the toxic hydrazine and sodium borohydride are used. Then how do you come to say 'the "toxicity" part is bullshit' in your topic?
That said, phosphorus itself is not completely harm-free itself ...
They are only sometimes used. There are lots of current (last five years) papers where they aren't used, NaBH4 and N2H4 are just extreme examples being used - phosphorus is still used, as is sodium ascorbate (also known as vitamin C). Hell, the lab down the hall from mine makes AuNPs via laser ablation and deposition - no reducing agent needed at all, just a vacuum.
Phosphorus is only dangerous if you eat it on the multi-gram scale or if you heat it, and frankly, anyone who does that gets what they deserve. If you're worried about waste, elemental phosphorus will oxidize pretty quickly with contact with air (and gold nanoparticles) and become biocompatible phosphates.
Yes, white phosphorus is pyrophoric, but it's the less stable of the two allotropes, and it's pretty hard to make, so you don't need to worry about it being a sideproduct.
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There Goes Cinnamon (Score:2)
Every time a new use is found for something we seem to pay through the neck. Rice, corn, potatoes and wheat can all make fuel for your car or be mixed with gasoline. Anyone priced a bag of spuds lately. Corn is now so expensive that there have been riots in Mexico as they can't make their taco shells. If cinnamon finds industrial uses my toast may never be the same.
Different salts...? (Score:2)
They mixed gold salts with a common spice – cinnamon – and stirred the mixture in water
I wonder, how does gold salt taste compared to iodised salt? And with a pinch of cinnamon thrown in... I might have to try it with the rice porridge for xmas.
full text (Score:1)
Melange... (Score:1)
"I see you do much working with the spice... you make paper... plastics... and isn't that chemical explosives?"....
The spice... (Score:1)
To the three wise men who discovered this... (Score:1)
Tigers hate this approach... (Score:1)
Tigers hate cinnamon, everybody knows that.