The Earth we inhabit struggles in an ever-tightening race between being overcome with its own trash and cleaning up after itself.\u00a0 Two stunning approaches to turning trash and waste into valuable materials and fuels could help us win that race.<\/p>\n
Bigthink.com <\/em>leads with the news<\/a> that, \u201cGraphene typically costs $200,000 per ton. Now, scientists can make it from trash.\u201d\u00a0 This \u201cinsanely useful\u201d product is difficult to produce, making it a luxury for many applications \u2013 until now.<\/p>\n Graphene is insanely useful, but very difficult to produce \u2014 until now.\u00a0 Dr. James Tour and his Rice University students have created a way to produce graphene in large quantities in a literal flash.\u00a0 This technique, Flash Joule Heating, was discovered in Dr. Tour\u2019s laboratory by graduate student Duy Luong.\u00a0 Also the lead author on the paper in the journal Nature<\/em><\/a>, Luong \u201cDid not expect to find graphene when he fired up the first small-scale device to find new phases of material, beginning with a sample of carbon black. \u2018This started when I took a look at a Science<\/em> paper talking about flash Joule heating to make phase-changing nanoparticles of metals,\u2019 he said. But Luong quickly realized the process produced nothing but high-quality graphene.\u201d<\/p>\n As Dr. Tour explains in the video below, Luong\u2019s discovery came to have grander, even planet-saving implications.<\/p>\n world throws out 30% to 40% of all food, because it goes bad, and plastic waste is of worldwide concern. We\u2019ve already proven<\/a> that any solid carbon-based matter, including mixed plastic waste and rubber tires, can be turned into graphene.\u201d<\/p>\n