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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday January 31 2017, @08:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the mythbusters-approach-to-results dept.

Forget chemicals, catalysts and expensive machinery — a Kansas State University team of physicists has discovered a way to mass-produce graphene with three ingredients: hydrocarbon gas, oxygen and a spark plug.

Their method is simple: Fill a chamber with acetylene or ethylene gas and oxygen. Use a vehicle spark plug to create a contained detonation. Collect the graphene that forms afterward.

Chris Sorensen, Cortelyou-Rust university distinguished professor of physics, is the lead inventor of the recently issued patent, "Process for high-yield production of graphene via detonation of carbon-containing material". Other Kansas State University researchers involved include Arjun Nepal, postdoctoral researcher and instructor of physics, and Gajendra Prasad Singh, former visiting scientist.

"We have discovered a viable process to make graphene," Sorensen said. "Our process has many positive properties, from the economic feasibility, the possibility for large-scale production and the lack of nasty chemicals. What might be the best property of all is that the energy required to make a gram of graphene through our process is much less than other processes because all it takes is a single spark."


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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 31 2017, @08:43PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 31 2017, @08:43PM (#461413) Journal

    That black ash lining my car's pistons is precious graphene, not a giant pain in the ass that gradually ruins the oil?

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  • (Score: 2) by rts008 on Tuesday January 31 2017, @08:55PM

    by rts008 (3001) on Tuesday January 31 2017, @08:55PM (#461418)

    Well, your PITA is still there, and still ruining oil, but is now suddenly valuable? ;-)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:37PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:37PM (#461464)

      I'm gonna go with "worthless" instead, with the gas and oil byproducts baked into any graphene at rather high temperatures repeatedly. I know I know, boo hisss get off our karma train!

  • (Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Tuesday January 31 2017, @08:55PM

    by BsAtHome (889) on Tuesday January 31 2017, @08:55PM (#461419)

    Therefore, you are going to be sued to pay a patent license fee. Collecting graphene from your car is patent infringement, regardless that the motors have been generating that byproduct for more than 100 years. Soon there will be a patent license fee per kilometer (or mile) for your illegal graphene producing vehicle. Patent enforcement must become great again, no freeriders allowed!

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Dunbal on Tuesday January 31 2017, @09:23PM

      by Dunbal (3515) on Tuesday January 31 2017, @09:23PM (#461433)

      Clearly anyone with bunged up cylinders, spark plugs and pistons can claim prior art.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:13PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:13PM (#461455)

        I read the patent because it was interesting, toward the end there's some theoretical verbiage on why it works and detonation/ping would rapidly destroy an engine so no its not really "IC engine as prior art".

        There's a whole beefy wikipedia article on graphene production. Its one of those things that's very easy to make and very difficult to make controllably and efficiently and cheaply. Like "growing plants to brew into ethanol as a fuel" it looks so simple but when you run the numbers it doesn't work well and doing it economically is very challenging (or perhaps impossible under all but unusual conditions).

        Also BTW the journalist coverage implies the problem is solved however the particles are small, so if you want to do "big stuff" you have to keep doing other things. Of course little graphene particles are useful too.

        • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday January 31 2017, @11:34PM

          by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday January 31 2017, @11:34PM (#461483)

          TIL:
          > Detonation typically involves a supersonic exothermic front that accelerates through a medium that eventually drives a shock front propagating directly in front of it.
          > Deflagration is typically described as subsonic combustion propagating through heat transfer.

          But from the patent description, it sounds like running your engine at over 4000K would (very briefly) do the trick.
          Sorting the graphene from the molten metal shards might not be the easiest step.

    • (Score: 2) by mr_mischief on Tuesday January 31 2017, @11:56PM

      by mr_mischief (4884) on Tuesday January 31 2017, @11:56PM (#461490)

      Per kilometer in the US and Liberia and per mile in the rest of the world, of course.

      • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Wednesday February 01 2017, @12:20AM

        by DECbot (832) on Wednesday February 01 2017, @12:20AM (#461496) Journal

        Please reasonable units like Calories per bushel per furlong^3 per fortnight.

        --
        cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
        • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday February 01 2017, @08:11AM

          by mhajicek (51) on Wednesday February 01 2017, @08:11AM (#461579)

          How many cubits to the hogshead do you get?

          --
          The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
          • (Score: 1) by DECbot on Wednesday February 01 2017, @06:02PM

            by DECbot (832) on Wednesday February 01 2017, @06:02PM (#461717) Journal

            about a byte.

            --
            cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @06:57AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @06:57AM (#461575)
    I know you’re kidding, but unless your car uses acetylene or ethylene, your black ash likely isn’t graphene but soot. Gasoline tops out at 1500°C, but ethylene gets to 2300°C and acetylene 3300°C. An ethylene flame is hot enough to melt steel, and acetylene flames are hot enough to boil steel and more than hot enough to melt tungsten, which is why it’s used in welding torches. They’d thus burn hot enough to turn your engine into molten slag. I think it’s these high temperatures that help to create the graphene.