Scientists create high-quality graphene using soybean

A group of scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) created a high-quality grapheme, world's strongest material, using soybean.
Graphene is a carbon material that is one atom thick.

The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Key highlights of the research

• The scientists developed a novel "GraphAir" technology, which does not require a highly-controlled environment.

• The technology grows graphene film in ambient air with a natural precursor. It makes its production faster and simpler.

• The ambient-air process for graphene fabrication is fast, simple, potentially scalable, integration-friendly, and safe.

• GraphAir transforms soybean oil into graphene films in a single step. It results in good and transformable graphene properties, comparable to graphene made by conventional methods.

• Soybean oil, with heat, breaks down into a range of carbon building units that are necessary for the synthesis of graphene.

• The team also transformed other types of renewable and waste oil into graphene films.

What is graphene?

• Graphene is an allotrope of carbon in the form of a two-dimensional, atomic-scale, hexagonal lattice in which one atom forms each vertex.

• It can be considered as an indefinitely large aromatic molecule.

• It is about 200 times stronger than the strongest steel.

• It efficiently conducts heat and electricity and is nearly transparent.

• The potential uses of graphene include water filtration and purification, sensors, personalised healthcare, renewable energy, medicine and so on.