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Saturday, April 26, 2014

Irish scientists make wonder-material graphene in kitchen blender ~ fucking wow ?

Irish scientists make wonder-material graphene in kitchen blender

Scientists in Ireland have demonstrated that people can make the revolutionary material graphene at home using a pencil, washing-up liquid and a kitchen blender. The material, only first produced in the laboratory in 2004, is one atom thick and is a sheet of pure carbon that has the capability to transform electronics.

Graphene has been hailed as a wonder-material which - if it can be mass-produced - can be used in electronics, biological engineering, photovoltaics and energy storage. It is extremely light and stronger than steel, yet incredibly flexible and extremely electrically conductive.
Scientists at Trinoity College, Dublin, were tasked by the chemical company Thomas Swan to produce a form of garophene that could be of a purer form that that being currently manufactured.
Researchers in AMBER, the Science Foundation Ireland funded materials science centre headquartered at CRANN, Trinity College Dublin have, for the first time, developed a new method of producing industrial quantities of high quality graphene.
The scientists puit graphite powder - found in pencils - and a solvent mixture into a laboratory mixer and found that they could produce graphene at a rate of 5 grams an hour.
Later they scaled this and used a domestic kitchen blender and Fairy Liquid - a standard washing-up liquid in the UK - and found that they could mass-produce high quality graphene.
The discovery will change the way many consumer and industrial products are manufactured. The materials will have a multitude of potential applications including advanced food packaging; high strength plastics; foldable touch screens for mobile phones and laptops; super-protective coatings for wind turbines and ships; faster broadband and batteries with dramatically higher capacity than anything available today.
Prof Jonathan Coleman, Professor of Chemical Physics at Trinity College and AMBER said: "Graphene has been identified as a life changing material and to be involved at this stage of development is a wonderful achievement”.
Professor Jonathan Coleman (Trinity College)
Minister for Research and Innovation Sean Sherlock, TD commented; “This is something that USA, China, Australia, UK, Germany and other leading nations have all been striving for and have not yet achieved. This announcement shows how the Irish Government’s strategy of focusing investment in science with impact, as well as encouraging industry and academic collaboration, is working.”
Prof Mark Ferguson, Director General of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and Chief Scientific Adviser to the Irish Government said: “This is a very significant global achievement for Prof Coleman and AMBER. The research and licence agreement with Thomas Swan is an example of the real industry partnerships which SFI is establishing and developing. This research discovery opens the door for industry worldwide to bring their graphene ideas to commercial reality and is an example of the innovative research being conducted by the internationally renowned SFI Research centres.”
The discovery will change the way many consumer and industrial products are manufactured. The materials will have a multitude of potential applications including advanced food packaging; high strength plastics; foldable touch screens for mobile phones and laptops; super-protective coatings for wind turbines and ships; faster broadband and batteries with dramatically higher capacity than anything available today.
(VoR, Trinity College Dublin)

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