An Irish-UK scientific team managed to make “supermaterial” 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.
The research 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.
Because of its potential uses in industry, a number of researchers have been searching for ways to make defect-free graphene in large amounts.
An Irish-UK scientific team managed to make “supermaterial” graphene using a kitchen blender
The material comprises a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb structure. Graphite is effectively made up of many layers of graphene stacked on top of one another.
Jonathan Coleman from Trinity College Dublin and colleagues tested out a variety of laboratory mixers as well as kitchen blenders as potential tools for manufacturing the wonder material.
They showed that the shearing force generated by a rapidly rotating tool in solution was sufficiently intense to separate the layers of graphene that make up graphite flakes without damaging their two-dimensional structure.
However, it’s not advisable to try this at home. The precise amount of dishwashing fluid that’s required is dependent on a number of different factors and the black solution containing graphene would need to be separated afterwards.
However, the researchers said their work “provides a significant step” towards deploying graphene in a variety of commercial applications.
In addition to its potential uses in electronics, graphene might have applications in water treatment or oil spill clean-up.
A surge in research into the novel material graphene reveals an intensifying global contest to lead a potential industrial revolution.
Latest figures show a sharp rise in patents filed to claim rights over different aspects of graphene since 2007, with a further spike last year.
China leads the field as the country with the most patents.
The South Korean electronics giant Samsung stands out as the company with most to its name.
The figures, compiled by a UK-based patent consultancy, CambridgeIP, highlight how the UK, which pioneered research into graphene, may be falling behind its rivals.
Only identified in 2004, graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms making it the thinnest material ever created and offering huge promise for a host of applications from IT to energy to medicine.
Flexible touchscreens, lighting within walls and enhanced batteries are among the likely first applications.
Early work on graphene by two Russian scientists at the University of Manchester, Andrei Geim and Konstantin Novosolev, earned them a shared Nobel Prize in 2010 and then knighthoods.
The material – described as being far stronger than diamond, much more conductive than copper and as flexible as rubber – is now at the heart of a worldwide contest to exploit its properties and develop techniques to commercialize it.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced further funding for graphene research last month, bringing the total of UK government support to more than £60 million ($96 million).
But the tally of patents – an essential first step to turning a profit from a substance still based in the lab – shows how intense the worldwide competition has become.
A surge in research into the novel material graphene reveals an intensifying global contest to lead a potential industrial revolution
According to new figures from CambridgeIP, there were 7,351 graphene patents and patent applications across the world by the end of last year – a remarkably high number for a material only recognized for less than a decade.
Of that total, Chinese institutions and corporations have the most with 2,200 – the largest number of any country and clear evidence of Chinese determination to capitalize on graphene’s future value.
The US ranks second with 1,754 patents. The UK, which kickstarted the field with the original research back in 2004, has only 54 – of which 16 are held by Manchester University.
UK science minister David Willetts, who has identified graphene as a national research priority, said the figures show that “we need to raise our game”.
“It’s the classic problem of Britain inventing something and other countries developing it.”
Most striking of all the figures is that the South Korean electronics giant Samsung leads the corporate field with an immense total 407 patents. America’s IBM is second with 134.
The chairman of CambridgeIP, Quentin Tannock, said: “There’s incredible interest around the world – and from 2007 onwards we see a massive spike in filings all over the world particularly in the USA Asia and Europe.”
But he warned that despite the British government’s support, there was a serious risk that the UK may lose out.
“Britain has got a reputation for being very canny, having very good inventors, so the race isn’t over.
“But my concern is that in Britain there isn’t an appreciation of just how competitive the race for value in graphene is internationally, and just how focused and well resourced how competitors are.
“And that leads to a risk that we might underinvest in graphene as an area and that therefore we might look back in 20 years’ time with hindsight and say <<that was wonderful, we got a lot of value, but we didn’t get as much as we should have done>>.”
The head of graphene research at the National University of Singapore confirmed to me that the material is now the subject of an intense contest.
Professor Antonio Castro Neto said: “It’s extremely competitive not only from the point of view of science… but also from a business point of view because many companies are starting to operate and sell graphene and graphene-related things.”
He believes that Britain still has “the potential to compete and be as big as what’s happening here in Asia”.
“But Asia, especially Singapore, started early. They had the vision to start early – but we still have to see what’s going to happen. There are lots of things going on and it will take time to find out who is going to win the race,” he explained.
However, one of the scientists behind the original work on graphene, Professor Andrei Geim, told me that many Western companies lack the ability to pursue research.
“Industry is more worried not about what can be done, but what competitors are doing – they’re afraid of losing the race.
“There is a huge gap between academia and industry and this gap has broadened during the last few decades after the end of Cold War, so I try as much as I can to reach to the industry.
“This is what has happened in last 30-40 years. We killed famous labs like Bell labs. Companies have slimmed down so they can no longer afford top research institutes. If something is happening in Korea it’s because Samsung have an institute – there is nothing like that in this country.
“They can’t see beyond a 10-year horizon and graphene is beyond this horizon.”
European efforts may get a boost later this month when the European Commission announces the winners of a prize of one billion euros over 10 years for scientific research.
One of the six shortlisted entrants is a consortium of researchers under the banner Graphene Flagship.
And David Willetts, pointing to BP’s commitment to establish a $100 million graphene research facility in Manchester, said Britain could become “a world centre for graphene research” and attract more investment – but he admitted it was a difficult challenge.
Graphene
- Graphene is a form of carbon that exists as a sheet, one atom thick
- Atoms are arranged into a two-dimensional honeycomb structure
- Discovery of graphene announced in 2004 by the journal Science
- About 100 times stronger than steel; conducts electricity better than copper
- Touted as possible replacement for silicon in electronics
- About 1% of graphene mixed into plastics could make them conductive
An IBM team in Zurich has published single-molecule images so detailed that the type of atomic bonds between their atoms can be discerned.
The same pioneering team took the first-ever single-molecule image in 2009 and more recently published images of a molecule shaped like the Olympic rings.
The new work opens up the prospect of studying imperfections in the “wonder material” graphene or plotting where electrons go during chemical reactions.
The images are published in Science.
The team, which included French and Spanish collaborators, used a variant of a technique called atomic force microscopy (AFM).
AFM uses a tiny metal tip passed over a surface, whose even tinier deflections are measured as the tip is scanned to and fro over a sample.
The IBM team’s innovation to create the first single molecule picture, of a molecule called pentacene, was to use the tip to pick up a single, small molecule made up of a carbon and an oxygen atom.
An IBM team in Zurich has published single-molecule images so detailed that the type of atomic bonds between their atoms can be discerned
This carbon monoxide molecule effectively acts as a record needle, probing with unprecedented accuracy the very surfaces of atoms.
It is difficult to overstate what precision measurements these are.
The experiments must be isolated from any kind of vibration coming from within the laboratory or even its surroundings.
They are carried out at a scale so small that room temperature induces wigglings of the AFM’s constituent molecules that would blur the images, so the apparatus is kept at a cool -268C.
While some improvements have been made since that first image of pentacene, lead author of the Science study, Leo Gross, said the new work was mostly down to a choice of subject.
The new study examined fullerenes – such as the famous football-shaped “buckyball” – and polyaromatic hydrocarbons, which have linked rings of carbon atoms at their cores.
The images show just how long the atomic bonds are, and the bright and dark spots correspond to higher and lower densities of electrons.
Together, this information reveals just what kind of bonds they are – how many electrons pairs of atoms share – and what is going on chemically within the molecules.
“In the case of pentacene, we saw the bonds but we couldn’t really differentiate them or see different properties of different bonds,” Dr. Leo Gross said.
“Now we can really prove that… we can see different physical properties of different bonds, and that’s really exciting.”
The team will use the method to examine graphene, one-atom-thick sheets of pure carbon that hold much promise in electronics.
But defects in graphene – where the perfect sheets of carbon are buckled or include other atoms – are currently poorly understood.
The team will also explore the use of different molecules for their “record needle”, with the hope of yielding even more insight into the molecular world.
A new report in Science journal gives details on how carbon-based material graphene can help scientists study liquids more clearly with high-power microscopes.
Graphene can form a clear “window” to see liquids at higher resolution than was previously possible using transmission electron microscopes.
Liquids had been difficult to view at the same resolution as solids because these microscopes require the liquids to be encapsulated by some material.
Traditionally, silicon nitride or silicon oxide capsules, or liquid cells, have been used. But these are generally too thick to see through clearly.
Now, Jong Min Yuk at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues have shown that pockets created by sheets of graphene can be used to study liquids at clear, atomic, resolution using transmission electron microscopes (TEMs).
Graphene can form a clear window to see liquids at higher resolution than was previously possible using transmission electron microscopes
The researchers used their new graphene-based liquid cell to study the formation of platinum nanocrystals in solution.
With this technique, the team of scientists was able to observe new and unexpected stages of nanocrystal growth as it happened.
They noted how the crystals selectively coalesced and modified their shape.
Graphene consists of a flat layer of carbon atoms tightly packed into a two-dimensional honeycomb arrangement.
Because it is so thin, it is also practically transparent. The unusual electronic, mechanical and chemical properties of graphene at the molecular scale promise numerous applications.
Its discoverers, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov from Manchester University, were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010.
The technique described by Jong Min Yuk and colleagues might enable scientists to study other physical, chemical, and biological phenomena that take place in liquids on the nanometre scale.
“Their approach opens new domains of research in the physics and chemistry in the fluid phase in general,” said Christian Colliex, from the Universite Paris Sud in France, who was not involved with the research.
In another paper published in this week’s Science magazine, researchers from the US and Spain report that the stress of pressing the tip of an atomic force microscope into a thin film of material can switch the direction of the film’s electric charge.
This phenomenon, called “flexoelectricity”, could be harnessed to improve memory in electronic devices.
It could achieve this by allowing digital bits of information to be written mechanically but read electrically – which would use less power.
The process has been likened to a nanoscale typewriter – mechanically “writing” changes in the direction of electric charge.
