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