One box of Girl Scout Cookies worth $15 billion

Rice University lab shows troop how any carbon source can become valuable graphene

2011-08-06

(Press-News.org) Scientists can make graphene out of just about anything with carbon -- even Girl Scout Cookies.

Graduate students in the Rice University lab of chemist James Tour proved it when they invited a troop of Houston Girl Scouts to their lab to show them how it's done.

The work is part of a paper published online today by ACS Nano. Rice scientists described how graphene -- a single-atom-thick sheet of the same material in pencil lead -- can be made from just about any carbon source, including food, insects and waste.

The cookie gambit started on a dare when Tour mentioned at a meeting that his lab had produced graphene from table sugar.

"I said we could grow it from any carbon source -- for example, a Girl Scout cookie, because Girl Scout Cookies were being served at the time," Tour recalled. "So one of the people in the room said, 'Yes, please do it. ... Let's see that happen.'"

Members of Girl Scouts of America Troop 25080 came to Rice's Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology to see the process. Rice graduate students Gedeng Ruan, lead author of the paper, and Zhengzong Sun calculated that at the then-commercial rate for pristine graphene -- $250 for a two-inch square -- a box of traditional Girl Scout shortbread cookies could turn a $15 billion profit.

"That's a lot of cash!" said an amazed Sydney Shanahan, a member of the troop.

A sheet of graphene made from one box of shortbread cookies would cover nearly 30 football fields, Sun said.

The experiment was a whimsical way to make a serious point: that graphene -- touted as a miracle material for its toughness and conductivity since its discovery by Nobel Prize-winning scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov in 2004 -- can be drawn from many sources.

To demonstrate, the researchers subsequently tested a range of materials, as reported in the new paper, including chocolate, grass, polystyrene plastic, insects (a cockroach leg) and even dog feces (compliments of lab manager Dustin James' miniature dachshund, Sid Vicious).

In every case, the researchers were able to make high-quality graphene via carbon deposition on copper foil. In this process, the graphene forms on the opposite side of the foil as solid carbon sources decompose; the other residues are left on the original side. Typically, this happens in about 15 minutes in a furnace flowing with argon and hydrogen gas and turned up to 1,050 degrees Celsius.

Tour expects the cost of graphene to drop quickly as commercial interests develop methods to manufacture it in bulk. Another new paper by Tour and his Rice colleagues described a long-sought way to make graphene-based transparent electrodes by combining graphene with a fine aluminum mesh. The material may replace expensive indium tin oxide as a basic element in flat-panel and touch-screen displays, solar cells and LED lighting.

The experiment the Girl Scouts witnessed "has a lot to do with current research topics in academia and in industry," said Tour, Rice's T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of computer science. "They learned that carbon -- or any element -- in one form can be inexpensive and in another form can be very expensive."

Diamonds are a good example, he said. "You could probably get a very large diamond out of a box of Girl Scout Cookies."

### Zhiwei Peng a graduate student in Tour's group, is a co-author of the paper.

Sandia National Laboratory, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Office of Naval Research MURI program funded the research.

Read the abstract at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn202625c

View the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loLvULmacw4

High-resolution photos are available at
http://www.media.rice.edu/images/media/NEWSRELS/0801_Cookie_team.jpeg
http://www.media.rice.edu/images/media/NEWSRELS/0801_Scouts-1.jpg
http://www.media.rice.edu/images/media/NEWSRELS/0801_Scouts-2.jpg
http://www.media.rice.edu/images/media/NEWSRELS/0801_Scouts-3.jpg
http://www.media.rice.edu/images/media/NEWSRELS/0801_Scouts-4.jpg

CAPTIONS:

(Team)

From left, graduate student Gedeng Ruan, Professor James Tour, and graduate students Zhiwei Peng and Zhengzong Sun reported their success at making graphene from many carbon sources, including food, insects and waste, in a new ACS Nano paper. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

(Testing)

Rice University researchers and members of Girl Scouts of America Troop 25080 confirm the conductivity of graphene made from shortbread Girl Scout Cookies. (Credit: Rice University)

(Looking at graphene)

 Members of Girl Scouts of America Troop 25080 of Houston look at fresh graphene, just out of the furnace and attached to a piece of copper. The troop visited a Rice University lab to watch researchers make graphene, a single-atom-thick sheet of carbon out of Girl Scout Cookies. (Credit: Rice University)

(Preparing cookie)

Rice University graduate student Zhengzong Sun prepares a Girl Scout shortbread cookie for the furnace, where carbon from the cookie will turn into a sheet of graphene, the one-atom-thick form of carbon. Students in the Rice lab of chemist James Tour calculated that at then-current rates, a box of cookies could yield $15 billion in graphene, enough to cover nearly three football fields. (Credit: Rice University)

Located on a 285-acre forested campus in Houston, Texas, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is known for its "unconventional wisdom." With 3,485 undergraduates and 2,275 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is less than 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://futureowls.rice.edu/images/futureowls/Rice_Brag_Sheet.pdf.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Locally owned small businesses pack powerful economic punch

2011-08-06

Thinking small and local, not big and global, may help communities ignite long-term economic growth, according to Penn State economists. Small, locally owned businesses and startups tend to generate higher incomes for people in a community than big, nonlocal firms, which can actually depress local economies, said Stephan Goetz, professor of agricultural and regional economics. "Local ownership matters in important ways," said Goetz. "Smaller, locally owned businesses, it turns out, provide higher, long-term economic growth." The association of small businesses ...

Ereviewguide.com Helps Illustration Artists Save Money

2011-08-06

Illustrator software packages have really broadened the creative power of the illustrators. Gone are the days of endless drawings, erasing, scaling and tracing. All of these can be done with a click of a button with powerful illustrator software. This type of software really turbo charges the creative process so that illustrations that used to take days can be finished in hours if not within an hour. These pieces of software automate the most tedious and manual part of the illustration process and makes an artist's creative flow more dynamic and smooth. However, there are ...

6 million years of African savanna

2011-08-06

Scientists using chemical isotopes in ancient soil to measure prehistoric tree cover--in effect, shade--have found that grassy, tree-dotted savannas prevailed at most East African sites where human ancestors and their ape relatives evolved during the past six million years. "We've been able to quantify how much shade was available in the geological past," says University of Utah geochemist Thure Cerling, lead author of a paper titled "Woody cover and hominin environments in the past 6 million years" on the results in this week's issue of the journal Nature. "It shows ...

Launch of New Site Advance America Cash Offering Payday Loans Online

2011-08-06

The concept of the no fax payday loans has eased the financial troubles of hundreds of people across the globe. This is the reason these types of loans are fast becoming popular within the different countries of the world. The individuals can borrow an amount of money according to their needs to facilitate their cash flows before their next salary day. This way they can meet their urgent needs like paying for car maintenance, doctor's fees and other related issues. There are a number of banks and the financial institutes like Sky Loans offering these types of loans for ...

Potato trials and research provide grower information

2011-08-06

SPRINGLAKE – Whether it is a purple potato to fit a niche market or finding varieties resistant or at least tolerant to psyllid infestations, Dr. Creighton Miller has a potato plant in Texas aimed at meeting a grower's need. Miller, a potato breeder with Texas AgriLife Research and the Texas A&M University department of horticultural sciences in College Station, has breeding trials near Springlake and Dalhart. Selections are made from seedlings grown in breeding plots each year, he said. The children of these "families," as the parent plants are known in potato breeding, ...

Assumptions, not data, dictate opinions about predictive genetic testing in youth

2011-08-06

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Predictive genetic testing may be able to identify children's risk for developing common, treatable, and possibly preventable disorders. Using this knowledge, doctors may be able to help at-risk children learn to manage their conditions by making healthy lifestyle changes. Test results may also be the motivation children need to take their health seriously as they grow older. But critics of predictive genetic testing say test results may be psychologically harmful to children. However, these claims are rooted in assumption, not evidence, says U-M ...

Use of a retroflexion technique during colonoscopy in the right side of the colon improves polyp detection

2011-08-06

OAK BROOK, Ill. – August 4, 2011 – A new study from researchers in Indiana reports that use of a retroflexion technique in the right side of the colon during colonoscopy is safe and results in the detection of additional adenomatous (precancerous) polyps in approximately four percent of patients. This result is comparable to that expected from a second colonoscopy in the forward view. The study appears in the August issue of GIE: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE). Several ...

Dentist in 60638 Offers New Educational Resources for Enhanced Dental Health Awareness

2011-08-06

Leading dentist in Garfield Ridge, IL, Dr. Kyle Takla, has released new patient education resources via the practice's informative website. Patients can easily access the practice's website for valuable information on dental health care topics, symptoms and treatments at any time. With the addition of the online patient education library, patients can search various procedures performed by Drs. Takla, Perez and Patel such as veneers, teeth whitening and implants in Garfield Ridge. The new library presents patient education in a way that is "always on," allowing ...

New paper examines future of seawater desalinization

2011-08-06

A paper co-authored by William Phillip of the University of Notre Dame's Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Menachem Elimelech, Robert Goizueta Professor of Environmental and Chemical Engineering at Yale University, appearing in this week's edition of the journal Science offers a critical review of the state of seawater desalination technology. Elimelech and Phillip and examine how seawater desalination technology has advanced over the past 30 years, in what ways the state-of-the-art technology can be improved, and if seawater desalination is a sustainable ...

Montana State University team surprised by results of lung, mold study

2011-08-06

BOZEMAN, Mont. – Researchers led by Montana State University have found a surprising condition that occurs in the lungs after an invasion of a common mold that can cause deadly infections in humans. In the most oxygen-rich environment in the body – the lungs – the scientists discovered a shortage of oxygen. The shortage resulted from inflammation and invasive growth of the mold, which greatly reduced the oxygen available to the pathogenic mold Aspergillus fumigatus. The mold is generally found in hay, soils and compost piles and can cause a variety of lung infections ...

One box of Girl Scout Cookies worth $15 billion

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: