News in Brief Materials Science

Blender whips up graphene

New recipe makes cheap, easy nanomaterials

SUPER SHEET  Simple blender blades can slough off graphene, single-atom-thick layers of carbon, from  graphite. Graphene’s carbon atoms, depicted as bright blobs in this scanning transmission electron microscope image, form a chicken wire pattern.

CRANN/SuperSTEM

By Beth Mole

- More than 2 years ago

With soap, water, graphite and the whirl of a blender’s blades, researchers can serve up big batches of graphene, a material that shows promise for use in myriad high-tech applications.