This television designate how , just by rearrange some carbon atom , a $ 5 box of Girl Scout cookies becomes a $ 15 billion hunk of industrial material . In fact , rearrange the atoms of just about any old carbon paper source — including a received pencil lead — into thin tabloid of carbon atoms called graphene can turn a pretty serious profit .
Graphene , which was first extracted in sheets by Nobel LaureatesAndre GeimandKonstantin Novoselovin 2004 , has receive a deal of attention in recent years in light of its many likely applications in everything from solar energy harvesting to biomedicine . Consequently , the commercial rate for a two - in square sail of graphene is on the society of 250 dollar . For reference , the postgraduate students in Rice University pharmacist James Tour ’s lab gauge that a box seat of shortbread cookies contains enough carbon to get near to thirty football fields worth of graphene .
The demonstration given in the video up top was put on for a Girl Scout scout group by postgraduate pupil in Tour ’s science lab . Like many slap-up feats of science , the impetus for the demonstration began with a dare :
I said we could farm [ graphene ] from any carbon source — for example , a Girl Scout cookie , because Girl Scout Cookies were being serve at the time … so one of the hoi polloi in the room say , ‘ Yes , please do it … permit ’s see that happen . ’
So it materialise . But Tour and his grad students did n’t discontinue there . The lab group has just published a newspaper publisher inACS Nanodemonstrating their ability to develop graphene from any number of carbon paper origin , including chocolate , grass , dog fecal matter , and even a cockroach peg .
The image on the left , taken from the research laboratory ’s late publishing , illustrates the basic concept behind generating graphene . A solid source of atomic number 6 is placed on a piece of paper of copper transparency . The copper and carbon source are inserted into a low pressure furnace fall with argon and hydrogen gasolene at temperatures between 800 and 1050 degrees Celsius . Over the course of 15 to 20 minutes , the whole carbon source decomposes , and graphene forms on the side of the foil opposite to the original carbon source . The leftover residue persist on the original side of the copper bed sheet . Bingo — graphene .
I really need to find one of those atomic number 1 / argon super - ovens .
Research viaACS Nano
scientific discipline
Daily Newsletter
Get the secure tech , science , and culture news program in your inbox day by day .
News from the future tense , deliver to your present .
You May Also Like
