Our NanoNews Digest Sponsors Home > Press > Silver ions hurry up, then wait as they disperse: Rice chemists show ions staged release from gold-silver nanoparticles could be useful property Chemists at Rice University and the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany quantified the release of silver ions from gold-silver nanoparticle alloys. At top, transmission electron microscope images show the change in color as silver (in blue) leaches out of a nanoparticle over several hours, leaving gold atoms behind. The bottom hyperspectral images show how much a nanoparticle of silver and gold shrank over four hours as the silver leached away. (Credit: Rice University)