If we believe the words of Dr Richard Holliday, industrial applications manager, World Gold Council, then a number of novel applications for gold is based upon developing markets for nanotechnology. This was stated in the Rand Refinery 2006 Annual Report and it also says that precious metals nanoparticles are already being deployed in autoimotive emission control catalysts. Now a number of areas are being explored where gold nanoparticles can be deployed which includes areas such as pollution control, air cleaning and bulk chemical production. A number of big names such as BASF, Johnson Matthey and 3M have shown interests in development of commercial applications for gold catalysts. Dr Richard Holliday stated: Although gold nanoparticles are, by definition, tiny, significant quantities of particles are likely to be required in many of the potential commercial applications. Nanoparticles of precious metals such as platinum and palladium are already used in significant quantities in automotive emission-control catalysts. If this turns out to be true then gold prices would surely shoot up to such an extent that a common man might have to think twice before buying it.