Graphene, a thin, tough material that can conduct electricity, could be created in your kitchen in the future.
As scientists look for to produce larger amounts of graphene, an Irish and British group of researchers recently discovered that the material could be made in a blender, BBC News reported.
Graphene, which is composed of carbon atoms in a honeycomb-like arrangement that is one atom thick, is used for many industry purposes. Along with conducting electricity, graphene can potentially be handy for water treatment or be used in cleaning up oil spills.
Detailing their findings in the journal Nature Materials, Jonathan Coleman from Trinity College Dublin and his colleagues experimented with laboratory mixers and kitchen blenders to find graphene-manufacturing tools.
They discovered that a blender had enough force "to separate the layers of graphene that make up graphite flakes without damaging their two-dimensional structure," BBC News reported.
The team members say the study "provides a significant step" toward making graphene easier to produce, but the material won't be made in the average household any time soon.
To make the graphene, the scientists measured certain amounts of dishwashing fluid and then separated the black solution that held the actual graphene.
"By fully characterizing the scaling behavior of the graphene production rate, we show that exfoliation can be achieved in liquid volumes from hundreds of milliliters up to hundreds of liters and beyond," the researchers wrote. "The graphene produced by this method performs well in applications from composites to conductive coatings."
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