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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, Informative) by theluggage on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:41PM
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."
Er... a single spark plus the energy released by a whole chamber full of hydrocarbon gas (or "fuel" as it is sometimes known) and oxygen going foom (unless that they're saying all the carbon gets turned into graphene?) Seriously hope that brainfart came from a press officer and not one of the researchers...
Otherwise, my car uses negative energy to move because in normal conditions the engine produces all the energy needed to run the sparkplugs, with enough left over to drive the radio, air con, heater, lights...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:50PM
You are technically correct (yes... yes...), but clearly they were not referring the entire environment when making that statement. I had taken it to be, "other processes are energy intensive because they need to do ____ to the ingredients, whereas this process only requires a bit of electricity and the ingredients do the reactions on their own."
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Tuesday January 31 2017, @11:26PM
other processes are energy intensive because they need to do ____ to the ingredients
This process needs to burn a portion of the ingredients (presumably in order to create the required temperature and pressure).
But yeah, I don't question the claim that this may be the most efficient process (c.f. internal combustion vs. steam) - just the silly "all it takes is a single spark" comment.