Science turns cloth to gold

NEW ZEALAND: Researchers in Wellington are claiming a "world first" after creating a scarf dyed with gold and silver nanoparticles. The creation, by Victoria University students, has drawn parallels to the golden fleece of Greek mythology. Created when the students added nanoparticles made of pure gold to fine merino wool, the scarf was unveiled at a Nano Science and Technology Institute convention in Boston, US, last week.

"We want to create a fashion icon, like Louis Vuitton or Gucci, where the logo will speak for itself," said Victoria University's lead researcher Professor James Johnston.

"You could say that you are clothed in pure gold or silver," said Professor Johnston, who began work in 2006 with Dr Michael Richardson and colleague Fern Kelly on using gold nanoparticles as stable colourants on fabrics, particularly merino wool used for high quality fashion garments.

As well as linking gold with quality fashion, the gold nanoparticle colourants had the advantage that they would not fade in light, unlike traditional organic dyes.

Initial research was carried out in collaboration with Lincoln-based company Canesis Network Ltd and wool research body Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) and attracted intense interest from high-profile fashion garment manufacturers.

The Wellington researchers were part of the university's MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials & Nanotechnology, which presented a paper to the Boston convention titled Gold Nanoparticles as Colourants in High Fashion Fabrics and Textiles, in partnership with Kerstin Burridge, a researcher studying the use of gold and silver nanoparticles to coat clay. She found they could produce interesting optical effects as well as the ability to conduct electricity and kill bacteria.

In applying their research to fashion, the scientists found that gold nanoparticles about 10 nanometres (nm) -10,000 times thinner than the average human hair - coloured the wool red.

As the size of particles increased to 100 nanometres, they interacted differently with light and the wool colour turned from red to purple and then to blue, finishing in various shades of grey.

Professor Johnston told the Discovery Channel that gold nanoparticles could "dye" fabrics in colours ranging from purple to yellow and everything in between, while silver nanoparticles could create bright yellows, greens and oranges.

Precious-metal-dyed wool would come at a price: probably many times more expensive than the average wool sweater.

Prof Johnston estimated that the scarf made of the wool displayed at the conference "hot off the loom," would cost up to $US300 ($A320).

Declining to name specific fashion designers involved, he said the first precious metal dyed garments would appear on the market in around a year's time.