Graphene can be made from plants and even carbon dioxide aswell as any other carbon based materials. This could make a near unlimited supply of graphene.
Muhammad taqi-uddeen safian, umirah syafiqah haron, and mohamad nasir mohamad ibrahim
Biomass waste has become a new source for producing graphene due to its carbon-rich structure and renewable nature. In this paper, the research on the conversion of bio-based graphene from different biomass wastes is summarised and discussed. This paper reviews the methods for converting biomass to bio-based graphene. There are two approaches for thermal degradation of biomass: thermal exfoliation and carbon growth. The purpose of the thermal treatment is to increase the carbon content by removing volatile matter from the biomass polymer chain. Pre-treatments that help to break down the complex structure of the biomass are discussed; pre-treatments also remove impurities from the said biomass. Lastly, the characteristics of bio-based graphene produced from different biomass and thermal treatments are summarised.
A pulse of light sets the tempo in the material. Atoms in a crystalline sheet just a few atoms thick begin to move—not randomly, but in a coordinated rhythm, twisting and untwisting in sync like dancers following a beat.
This atomic choreography, set in motion by precisely timed bursts of energy, happens far too fast for the human eye or even traditional scientific tools to detect. The entire sequence plays out in about a trillionth of a second.
To witness it, a Cornell–Stanford University collaboration of researchers turned to ultrafast electron diffraction, a technique capable of filming matter at its fastest timescales. Using a Cornell-built instrument and Cornell-built high-speed detector, the team captured atomically thin materials responding to light with a dynamic twisting motion.
Researcher Cunjiang Yu and his research team, including several of his former students, have announced a significant milestone in materials and electronics engineering: the creation of what they call “rubbery CMOS,” which provides the same functionality as conventional CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) circuits, but is made from entirely different materials.
The research is published in the journal Science Advances.
The great benefit of rubbery CMOS is that it provides the circuit functionality of conventional CMOS while also being stretchable and deformable.
Scientists have found that keratin, the protein in hair and skin, can repair and protect tooth enamel. The material forms a mineralized layer that halts decay and restores strength, outperforming traditional fluoride. Made from sustainable sources like hair, it could soon be available in toothpaste or gels. The discovery could transform dentistry by turning waste into a powerful tool for regeneration.
Mechanical Engineering Professor Alan McGaughey of Carnegie Mellon University recently coordinated the Phonon Olympics, bringing togetherAlthough there’s no medal at the end of the Phonon Olympics, for McGaughey, the collaboration required to evaluate the accuracy of three widely used open-source thermal conductivity calculation packages was worth more than gold.
For the last decade, researchers seeking to understand the properties of new materials have turned to open-source packages to perform thermal conductivity calculations. These packages enable a broader community to study thermal transport, but until now users had no way of knowing whether or not each package would produce consistent and accurate results.
Placing materials under extremely strong magnetic fields can give rise to unusual and fascinating physical phenomena or behavior. Specifically, studies show that under magnetic fields above 100 tesla (T), spins (i.e., intrinsic magnetic orientations of electrons) and atoms start forming new arrangements, promoting new phases of matter or stretching a crystal lattice.
One physical effect that can take place under these extreme conditions is known as magnetostriction. This effect essentially prompts a material’s crystal structure to stretch out, shrink or deform.
When magnetic fields above 100 T are produced experimentally, they can only be maintained for a very short time, typically for only a few microseconds. This is because their generation poses great stress on the wires used to produce the fields (i.e., coils), causing them to break almost immediately.
Mechanoluminescent (ML) materials are attractive for haptic interface sensors for next-generation technologies, including bite-controlled user interface, health care motion monitoring, and piconewton sensing, because they emit light under mechanical stimulation without an external power source. However, their intrinsically broad emission spectra can degrade resolution and introduce noise in sensing applications, necessitating further technological development.
Addressing this knowledge gap, a team of researchers from the Republic of Korea and the UK, led by Hyosung Choi, a Professor at the Department of Chemistry at Hanyang University, and including Nam Woo Kim, a master’s student at Hanyang University, recently employed a chromatic filtration strategy to pave the way to high-resolution ML haptic sensors. Their findings are published in the journal Advanced Materials.
In this study, the team coated the conjugated polymer poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene-alt-benzothiadiazole) (F8BT) onto ZnS: Cu to selectively suppress emission below 490 nm, narrowing the full width at half maximum from 94 nm to 55 nm.
High-temperature superconductivity is still not fully understood. Now, an international research team at BESSY II has measured the energy of charge carrier pairs in undoped La₂CuO₄. Their findings revealed that the interaction energies within the potentially superconducting copper oxide layers are significantly lower than those in the insulating lanthanum oxide layers. These results contribute to a better understanding of high-temperature superconductivity and could also be relevant for research into other functional materials.
The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.
Around 40 years ago, a new class of materials suddenly became famous: high-temperature superconductors. These materials can conduct electricity completely loss-free, not only at temperatures close to absolute zero (0 Kelvin or minus 273 degrees Celsius), but also at much higher temperatures, albeit still well below room temperature.