Platinum is best known as a catalyst – and as the precious metal one rank better than gold. However, it is also has near-miraculous medical applications.
Chemotherapy drugs like cisplatin and carboplatin harness platinum’s ability to inhibit DNA replication and cause cell death. Thanks to their superlative array of physiochemical properties, platinum nanoparticles (PtNPs) could also be used in targeted drug delivery, photothermal therapy, radiotherapy, antimicrobial ointments, bioimaging, and biosensors.
Their possibilities are tantalising, but PtNPs come with twin costs: monetary and environmental.
PtNPs are created through physical and chemical processes. The former approach uses high pressures and temperatures to produce pure nanoparticles of uniform size and shape, with enormous cost and energy consumption.
The latter family of processes, such as the sol-gel process and pyrolysis, applies chemical agents to reduce precursor metal ions to their corresponding...