Researchers hope that their properties might be altered to
permit nanodiamonds to be used as catalysts for generating hydrogen from
sunlight
Nanodiamonds are tiny crystals only a few nanometres in
size. While they possess the crystalline structure of diamonds, their
properties diverge considerably from those of their big brothers, because their
surfaces play a dominant role in comparison to their extremely small volumes.
Suspended in aqueous solutions, they could function as taxis for active
substances in biomedical applications, for example, or be used as catalysts for
splitting water.