Graphene made with kitchen blender

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27113732

by efficientarch • 12 years ago

74 19 12 years ago

bbc.co.uk

ColinWright• 12 years ago

Clearly a story that has grabbed some people's imaginations, but not others. No comments (so far) on any of these:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7627892

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7626865

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7624404

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7622657

Found when searching for duplications, this is different, but does have some discussion:

    A Solution For Graphene Production
   (acs.org)

-- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7614559

mk3• 12 years ago

http://jenslabs.com/2013/03/14/diy-graphene/ Skipped this one I believe :) the method of making graphene using lightscribe

ljd• 12 years ago

I'm having a hard time understanding why someone shouldn't make this at home.

This sounds like the perfect experiment I could run with the kids to get them excited about material science. It doesn't need to be a perfect layer of graphene, even a sludge would be good to show them, get them brainstorming about how they would separate out the sludge.

Is there a real reason other than difficulty, why someone shouldn't try this at home?

Crito• 12 years ago

Probably just the standard mindless disclaimer that people put in front of anything remotely interesting. If you don't want to get your blender dirty, the tape method would be good.

tbrownaw2• 12 years ago

Is there a real reason other than difficulty, why someone shouldn't try this at home?

Aren't most nano-particles suspected of causing cancer? I assume this method would generate fairly small pieces that might make people worry about that.

Also the blender mix would probably (1) make lots of foam and overflow the blender, and (2) stain everything it touches.

pdx• 12 years ago

That was a concern from the 90's. However you are being exposed to the "nano particles" everyday already. Rubber from car tires decomposes on the highway into particles of the scale that they can be considered "nano particles", for example. When ever you drive on the highway, you're stirring up clouds of them.

anigbrowl• 12 years ago

Eh, do it in your shed, and use an affordable respirator (available at any hardware store). If you have a place where you can make a bit of a mess then the cost of safety gear is low, construction-grade stuff will be adequate for most non-biological use cases. You can get special filters for asbestos, lead, and similar hazardous substances which contractors encounter frequently in old houses.

The main obstacle I see here (based on this report) is uncertainty about how to separate the material after you've blended it and what exactly you can apply it to without adding lots of expensive lab equipment. One candidate that springs to mind is using it for printing circuits, given graphene's high conductivity.

HCIdivision17• 12 years ago

May I recommend building a centrifuge? When I was in middle school, Scientific American had a cool article about extracting DNA In the kitchen. It was an abysmal failure, but attempting to build a centrifuge to separate the samples was immensely fun. Coolest, most thrilling project I tried in school (messy, too).

Note: blender wiring can catch fire if they are loaded for extended periods of time (don't underestimate the inertia), but old blenders work fine for at least a few minutes. Lego Technic works great, but only with really solid cross bracing. I recommend building a barricade around it (World Book volumes work nicely).

Edit: I should note that it did work. The rig spun two 10mL test tubes on swing arms at the low(est?) speed setting (which is pretty fast at a 4 inch radius). It seemed to work, but I never did figure out if the scum on top was DNA.

blacksmith_tb• 12 years ago

There have been some low-tech centrifuge designs based on salad spinners - I would think you could make an insert to fit into one that could hold test tubes without too much trouble, though I don't know if it would be powerful enough to separate the graphene well. A good experiment...

deelowe• 12 years ago

Heath reasons I'm guessing.

stephengillie• 12 years ago

So much FUD in this thread. Nobody actually has cancer from working with nanoparticles. Researchers have been making carbon nanotubes for years and none of them have cancer.

tbrownaw2• 12 years ago

There probably wouldn't be. I doubt they could be much worse than asbestos or cigarette smoke or coal dust, which on a couple minutes' research looks like it would be hard to notice anything until there's been a large group with many years of continuous exposure. (OTOH, being "nano" means they're new and unknown and so increases the scariness factor a bit.)

troymc• 12 years ago

The article didn't mention the sticky tape method of making graphene, but they did put a link to an article about that [1].

Sticky tape (or Scotch tape) can also be used to make X-rays [2]. Now the only question is how to use a blender to make X-rays…

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-11478645

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/science/28xray.html

shill• 12 years ago

It can also be used to see through frosted glass.

http://www.wired.com/2011/04/scotch-tape-lets-you-see-throug...

Lost_BiomedE• 12 years ago

Very cool. I have jars I want to etch for a product. Now I am wondering if I could get frosted jars and just clear labels.

ericfranklin• 12 years ago

While this looks like progress, and a potential path for graphene production, it still seems a long ways off from commercial viability. Diamonds went through a similar hype. It may be technically possible to make diamond with a torch or even peanut butter, but commercially producing large, clean gemstones (rather than grit/powder) requires much more involved processes. In this case, a blender could probably scale up easier, but it isn't "metre-scale sheets of graphene" already possible with CVD.

Graphene made with kitchen blender

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