
Graphene made with kitchen blender - efficientarch
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27113732
======
ColinWright
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=7627892)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7626865](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7626865)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7624404](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7624404)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7622657](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](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7614559)

~~~
mk3
[http://jenslabs.com/2013/03/14/diy-
graphene/](http://jenslabs.com/2013/03/14/diy-graphene/) Skipped this one I
believe :) the method of making graphene using lightscribe

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ljd
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?

~~~
tbrownaw
_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
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.

~~~
atrus
While the general nano particle fear is a little extreme, some of the
structures (specifically carbon nano-tubes) have a similar shape as Asbestos,
which does cause cancer due to it's shape.

CNTs aren't graphine, and I'm not sure that graphine can be easily made into
tubes, but it still should give some pause for thought.

~~~
Osmium
Just wanted to second this: I don't think we know enough about how safe these
things are. It's very different to have something like graphene packaged up in
a computer chip vs. free-floating in the air. I also have no idea if common,
off-the-shelf respirators are effective at blocking such small particles.

Also worth bearing in mind is that, I believe, wherever you make one form of
carbon you'll probably end up making other forms too, e.g. buckyballs (C60)
and carbon nanotubes have both been found in soot. So even if graphene is
safe, I have no idea if this process will produce other potentially unsafe
things too. A friend is actually working on looking at the effect carbon
nanotubes have on lung epithelial cells, so I know there's interest there.

That said, I imagine you'd find all these products in a standard wood fire
too, but then I recall reading that smoke from wood fires is as bad or worse
for you as cigarette smoke so perhaps that's little comfort...

Note: I am not a doctor and not an expert in this field either.

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troymc
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](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-11478645)

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

~~~
shill
It can also be used to see through frosted glass.

[http://www.wired.com/2011/04/scotch-tape-lets-you-see-
throug...](http://www.wired.com/2011/04/scotch-tape-lets-you-see-through-
frosted-glass/)

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
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.

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ericfranklin
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.

