Gold Matters: Sustainability Transformations in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining: A Multi-Actor and Trans-Regional Perspective.This project explores whether a transformative approach towards sustainability can arise in Artisanal and Smallscale Gold Mining (ASGM).

How does CO adsorption on gold promote its own oxidation and the oxidation of other organic molecules?

Research on the process of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) in West-Africa

Promotor: M.A.G.J. Orrit

Visualization of biomolecules in living cells by tagging with gold nanoparticles.

Promotor: Prof.dr. T.J. Aartsma, Co-promotor: R.N. Frese

Despite the fact that gold nanoparticles (GNPs) are one of the most studied nanoparticles, there is still a necessity for new approaches allowing for effective protective coating to enable wider use of GNPs in biomedical applications.

Gold nanorods are biocompatible nanoparticles that present an excellent two-photon signal that can be used to get high spatial resolution inside living cells. Gold nanorods are photostable and therefore can be followed inside cells for long time, with possible applications as trackers in live cells.

The book Global Gold Production Touching Ground: Expansion, Informalization, and Technological Innovation is edited by Boris Verbrugge and Sara Geenen. In recent decades, gold mining has moved into increasingly remote corners of the globe. Aside from the expansion of industrial gold mining, many countries…

Promotor: M.A.G.J. Orrit

This thesis is a collection of experimental attempts to enhance photoluminescence of fluorescent molecules and quantum dots with single gold nanorods (GNRs) and relevant applications.

Should the background of the painting remain blue or be restored to its original gold colour? PhD candidate Liselore Tissen will be using 3D prints and eye-tracking software to answer this question. NICAS is giving her a grant of 18,000 euros to accomplish this.

Policy Note Insecurity in Burkina Faso – beyond conflict minerals: The complex links between artisanal gold mining and violence

During the prestigious International Mathematics Competition in Blagoëvgrad, Burgary, the Leiden University team won one golden and four silver medals. The team included maths students Bob Zwetsloot, Daan van Gent, Onno Berrevoets, Pim Spelier and Wessel van Woerden.

The virtual Exhibition Gold Matters is now live and can be explored online. This exhibition is the result of collaborations between artists, members of mining communities, and researchers of the Gold Matters’ project. Curating the exhibition is a collaborative effort of the Gold Matters Team with Sabine…

Alumna Esmée Winkel, scientific illustrator and botanical artist, has been awarded a gold medal by the British Royal Horticultural Society for a series of six watercolours.

Individual molecules are extremely hard to see through feeble fluorescence. Tiny gold nanorods serve as new antennas to intensify their signal 500 times. Publication on 24 February in Angewandte Chemie.

The experiments described in this thesis employ local lentiviral knockdowns in brain areas of female zebra finches followed by behavioural assays consisting of preference and Go/Nogo tasks.

This thesis aims to improve the detection from ultra-weak single emitter by enhancing their emission properties with plasmonic nanostructures. We exploit the wet-chemically synthesized single crystalline gold nanorods (GNRs) as our basic frameworks in the whole studies, simply because of their unique…

An international and multi-disciplinary research consortium spent two days at Leiden University for the launch of their ‘GOLD MATTERS’ project, funded jointly by NORFACE and Belmont Forum. The project 'Sustainability Transformations in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining: A Multi-Actor and Trans-Regional…

This work describes several studies into the electroreduction of carbon dioxide (CO2RR), both regarding mechanistical aspects and catalyst stability considerations. Mechanistic insights into carbon-carbon bond formation on a silver catalyst are described in Ch 2, were we find an acetaldehyde-like surface…

Using a clever experiment, PhD candidate Shengxiang Yang discovered how gold electrodes convert water into oxygen. He is the first to unravel the mechanism of this reaction. Yang published his results in the journal ACS Catalysis.

Dirk Uittenbogaard, a student on the Delft-Leiden Master’s in Industrial Ecology, has won a gold medal for rowing at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Uittenbogaard took gold in the men’s quadruple sculls, together with Abe Wiersma, Tone Wieten and Koen Metsemakers.

In October 2021 the Volkskrant published the article 'Rond de bloedgoudmijnen van Burkina Faso heerst de angst voor terreur' (Around the blood-gold mines of Burkina Faso, the fear of terror rules). In this report Carlijne Vos describes how Burkina Faso is rapidly destabilising. The lucrative gold mines…

A consortium of researchers from the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION), the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), and the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) received a FOM program grant to develop a novel way of studying individual proteins inside a cell using gold nanorods.

Winning gold in speed skating at the Olympic Games is not just a matter of training hard; data science can also lend a hand. Jeroen van der Eb of the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) developed the measuring skate for this purpose, with which he recently won the Nationale Sportinnovator…

Gold nanoparticles give us a better understanding of enzymes and other molecules. Biswajit Pradhan, PhD candidate at the Leiden Institute of Physics, uses gold nanorods to study individual molecules that would be challenging to detect otherwise. Resulting knowledge can be applied to many research fields,…

Soil ecologists Emilia Hannula (Leiden) and Elly Morriën (UvA) received the Golden Medal of Teylers Tweede Genootschap on 5 November. They received the prize for their submission to a competition on sustainable soil management.

The adventure of iGEM Leiden has come to an end. The result: prizes for Best Therapeutic Project and Best Model, a gold medal, a successful crowdfunding campaign and of course their open-source research findings, which are available for the scientific community.

Team Jumbo-Visma is going for gold at the World Championships this weekend in Salt Lake City. For this, they have worked on a new special training method. The Data Mining and Sports group of the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) was involved in the development of this method.

In an interview on the website of the NWO, Sabine Luning, Marjo de Theije and Esther van de Camp talk about the gold miners they met in various African and South American countries and they come to new insights.

We are delighted to welcome Josh Gold as Visiting Fellow of The Hague Program for Cyber Norms at Leiden University’s Institute of Security and Global Affairs from 1 - 9 May.

Over the last 5-6 years Burkina Faso has become seriously implicated in the rapid and dramatic changes in the geopolitical situation in the Sahel. The country, once reputed for its stability and safety, has come under the spotlight for the number of violent attacks and of internally displaced people.…

Ilya Kokorin, Meijers PhD candidate at the Department of Financial Law, has been awarded the Gold Medal in the prestigious competition of the International Insolvency Institute (III), the 2020 Prize in International Insolvency Studies.

The Academic Language Centre (ATC) is one of the cornerstones of Leiden University. Director Gea Hakker explains how this organisation is providing quality (online) language courses and meeting new demands.

Promotor: J.W.M. Frenken Co-Promotores: I.M.N. Groot; L.B.F. Juurlink

Gold nanoparticles show surprisingly strong interactions with light in the visible range, which can be divided into scattering, absorption, and photoluminescence.

Do you have any questions about the Citizen Science Lab? Are you looking to participate in a local citizen science project? Do you want to establish a project for yourself and could use some support?

Marc Koper’s research focuses on electrocatalysis and electrochemical surface science for sustainable energy and chemistry. Reactions of interest are the redox reactions of the oxygen/hydrogen cycle (water oxidation, hydrogen evolution), the carbon cycle (reduction of carbon dioxide, oxidation of small…

Atoms and molecules are the basic units of matter. If we keep dividing a bar of gold or a glass of water into smaller parts, at the end we are left with a single gold atom or a water molecule.

Conference, Book launch

PhD Defence

Bicarbonate buffer is largely found in nature due to its ability to regulate pH variations around neutral values. As the pH changes, so does the speciation of the buffer.

Surface plasmons (SPs) are surface waves at the interface between a dielectric and a good metal, and are formed by the interaction between light and the free electrons at the metal-dielectric interface. They provide strong field confinement for optical fields, opening new possibilities for enhanced…

In this thesis, the focus lies on studying glucocorticoid receptor dynamics in living cells with the aim of understanding how this transcription factor finds its DNA target sites to regulate transcription.

Conference

Conference, Virtual Exhibition

When did the Mali Empire disintegrate? What does the Sunjata heritage demonstrate about the political situation after 1600?

PhD Defence