The Chemistry of Organic Derivatives of Gold and Silver

Book excerpt: The 100th volume in this highly successful and renowned Patai andRappoport series 'The Chemistry of Functional Groups' is fittinglydevoted to the precious metals, gold and silver. Gold is a soft metal occurring naturally as particles in quartz oras nuggets. Gold was initially used extensively in coinage andjewellery and has recently found applications in biochemistry,medicine and material science. Gold readily forms organometalliccompounds (R-Au-L with L = sulphide, phosphine and isocyanide),oxides and halides. Silver is a ductile metal which was used incoinage and for mirrors. It is now used for jewellery, electricalconductors, dental and surgical components. Silver forms stablesilver halides for use in Photography and i.r. spectroscopy as asupport material. Other silver compounds are also used incatalysis. This volume contains 16 chapters dealing with calculations onorganogold compounds, physical and spectroscopic properties (NMR,ESR, PES, Mossbauer spectra), thermochemical and analyticalproperties, the synthesis and uses of the title compounds and theirreactions such as rearrangements, pyrolysis and photochemicalreactions. The medicinal use of organogold compounds and theincreased use of gold-thiol monolayers are also summarized. Each of the chapters has been prepared by leading scientists inthis field making this volume invaluable for researchers inacademia and industry working with gold and silver, inbiochemistry, pharmaceutical and materials chemistry. Organic compunds containg Nitrogen are of outstanding importnce inbiochemistry and in environmental systems. This volume gives asound introduction into physical chemistry of amino, nitriso, nitroand related functional groups. This volume is now available in electronic format from BooksOnline.