Most traditional ceramic glazes employ high amounts of transition metal colorants that are toxic to the environment and can cause health issues in humans through surface leaching. Gold nanoparticles (Au-NPs) have been found to be environmentally friendly and non-toxic alternative metal colorant in ceramic glazes. The plasmon band observed with Au-NPs can result in vibrant solutions by manipulating NP size, shape, and concentration; however, the effects of traditional firing in both reductive and oxidative kilns on Au-NPs are poorly understood. Aside from ancient art processes whose mechanisms have not been fully explored, the use of Au-NPs as suspended ceramic glaze colorants remains somewhat unexplored. Au-NPs have been previously reported to diminish in size during sintering and possess significant differences in concentration with respect to reduction and oxidation firing atmospheres. As a means of studying possible degradation/renucleation processes within the glaze during firing, a systematic study introducing different diameter Au-NPs into the glaze materials was conducted with transmission electron microscopy and reflectance spectroscopy used to probe possible mechanisms which showed changes to Au-NP diameter and color intensity, making this work applicable to industry and art current practices.

中文翻译：

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陶瓷釉料中金纳米颗粒降解和重组的多尺寸研究

大多数传统陶瓷釉料使用大量过渡金属着色剂，这些着色剂对环境有毒，并可能通过表面浸出导致人类健康问题。已发现金纳米粒子 (Au-NPs) 是陶瓷釉料中环保且无毒的替代金属着色剂。用 Au-NPs 观察到的等离子体带可以通过操纵 NP 的大小、形状和浓度来产生充满活力的溶液；然而，人们对还原窑和氧化窑中传统烧制对​​ Au-NP 的影响知之甚少。除了其机制尚未完全探索的古代艺术过程外，使用 Au-NPs 作为悬浮陶瓷釉料着色剂仍有待探索。之前有报道称，Au-NPs 在烧结过程中尺寸会减小，并且在还原和氧化烧成气氛方面具有显着的浓度差异。作为研究烧制过程中釉料内可能的降解/再成核过程的一种手段，通过透射电子显微镜和反射光谱法对将不同直径的 Au-NPs 引入釉料材料进行了系统研究，以探测显示 Au-NP 变化的可能机制直径和颜色强度，使这项工作适用于工业和艺术当前的实践。