Graphene 'wonder material' made with kitchen blender

[dipsydoodle]

Scientists have outlined how they managed to make the "wonder material" graphene using a kitchen blender.

Graphene is thin, strong, flexible and electrically conductive, and has the potential to transform electronics as well as other technologies.

An Irish-UK team poured graphite powder (used in pencil leads) into a blender, then added water and dishwashing liquid, mixing at high speed.

The results are reported in the journal Nature Materials.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27113732

Nature Materials link here :

Scalable production of large quantities of defect-free few-layer graphene by shear exfoliation in liquids. http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmat3944.html

[Warpy]

1. Wow. I love kitchen science.

I imagine the blender was a commercial $1000+ monstrosity, but the implications for commercial manufacture are wonderful, a simple and energy efficient way to produce the stuff.

They're finding new applications for it every day. What they needed was a cheap way to produce it. Now it seems they've got that.

[sakabatou]

2. Like the monstrosity that is used in "Will it Blend?" videos?

[Judi Lynn]

3. Journal article reveals how to make graphene in your blender

Journal article reveals how to make graphene in your blender
ScienceAlert Staff
Tuesday, 22 April 2014

The process could produce 1kg of graphene a day, but it's not as easy as it sounds and will probably wreck your blender.

Journal article reveals how to make graphene in your blender

ScienceAlert Staff
Tuesday, 22 April 2014

Buried in the supplementary information of a new research paper, Nature blogger Richard Van Noorden has found a domestic recipe for producing large quantities of graphene.

But don't try it at home. As Van Noorden says: "It almost certainly won’t work and you won’t be able to use your kitchen blender for food afterwards."

Graphene is the world's thinnest, strongest material. It's also electrically conductive and flexible, and set to revolutionise most industries.

So it's no surprise researchers have been trying to find better, quicker ways to make large quantities of high-quality graphene flakes for years.

Now scientists from Trinity College Dublin have described how they took half a litre of water, 10-25mLs of detergent, 20-50g of graphite powder (found in pencil lead) and blended it all in a 400 watt kitchen blender for 10-30 minutes. The result, as published in Nature Materials, is a large number of tiny graphene flakes suspended in the water.

More:
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20142204-25414.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencealert-latestnews+%28ScienceAlert-Latest+Stories%29

[loudsue]

4. This is mind blowing.

Good for these guys!