Cooking oil has been turned into graphene -- a material that is 200 times stronger than steel, harder than diamond and bends like malleable plastic -- all thanks to science.
According to Huffington Post, a team of Australian scientists from Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has discovered a cheaper way to manufacture the miracle material by using soybean oil.
"Until now, the high cost of graphene production has been the major roadblock in its commercialization. Previously, graphene was grown in a highly-controlled environment with explosive compressed gases, requiring long hours of operation at high temperatures and extensive vacuum processing," CSIRO statement read.
The scientists have developed a process that does not require a strict environment, rather an ambient air with a natural precursor.
According to the study published in Nature Communications, the oil was heated in a tube furnace for about 30 minutes until it broke down in the composition of graphene. Graphene's characteristics make it an ideal material for many of the things that humans depend on or need today such as medicine and technology.
Daily Mail notes that the material conducts electricity better than copper, and could be used to make high-powered, flexible TV screens and phones. At present, the scientists at CSIRO can only make a sheet of graphene around the size of a credit card. One-carbon-atom-thick graphene is around 80,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair.
Graphene expert Professor David Officer, from the University of Wollongong told ABC News that the study would garner significant interest worldwide.
"The potential's enormous," he said. "[But] the question will be whether you can economically scale a method like this, where they've sealed it inside a furnace tube, to create and handle meter-sized films."
The study not only provides a cheaper way to produce the miracle material, but it also provides an idea on how we can recycle excess cooking oil.
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