 We're back. We're live here in tink-tink with likable science on a Friday afternoon Our two o'clock rock and of course the host and our chief scientist is Ethan Allen and he's here to help us with scientific questions But let me preface that by saying, you know, it was only a few weeks ago when I personally learned about about What's it called? This special carbon graphic graphene, okay? We're entitling the show not your daddy's carbon. This is different And and the preface in this is we learned about this at the verge at the verge energy conference two three weeks ago Because there was some commentary about it in one of the panels and it's really remarkable. It's a new battery So I've been talking and thinking about batteries for five years. You know, it's the key to the grid It's the key to clean energy. You can't do solar at night. Wind doesn't work quite as well at night All these renewables, you know, either ups and downs, but I can say so if you have batteries you smooth the curve and you make it dispatchable everything gets to be dispatchable energy really important, but Batteries are expensive storage is expensive Everyone talks about storage and everyone recognizes these problems both in cost efficiency, you know Sustainability and long long life and all that and so current batteries people are willing to live with them You know and sort of plan around them, but we need something better And I've always said that the guy who invents a better battery is going to make Bill Gates look like a piker Well, I was interesting Jay because they just have come up with this group just came up with a essentially an artificial leaf literally a device it's a sort of a biological Mechanical electrical cell that can take run on off of sunlight literally pulls carbon dioxide out of the air and turns it into essentially a usable fuel Whoa, there's another one if bypasses batteries and highly Fuel directly from something just like plants do you know the energy is the technology the technology was supposed to be And we and we have this corner on the market renewables We have wonderful environment right wonderful renewable Sort resources all around us. We are I hope we can realize the destiny of being a laboratory for the world right here What a great wonderful break it is and it's it's enhanced greatly enhanced by these new technologies They're coming soon. They're coming out of the best, you know research minds in the world and Yes, Bill Gates will look like a piker. So let's talk about both devices Let's start with graphene. Okay. Sure. What is it? What is that? Is it work? And why can it do these remarkable things and why didn't we figure it out earlier? Right, it's been around forever basically okay, but graphene is simply carbon Now you know carbon in form of charcoal right this sort of soft black crumbly stuff I was a kid. I had graphite in my pants, right? That's a different form and then there's diamonds, right? Which are also just carbon all those things are just carbon and It's how those carbon atoms get put together in different forms that make make them the materials so radically different So we now have the nanotechnology that can enable us to put them together in different forms, right? We can we can now build structures much more in a controlled manner than we used to be able to yeah So in a diamond all the carbon atoms are locked in the three-dimensional matrix each one linking to atoms above below beside it Perfect matrix where every carbon atoms linked to four others in this a picture. Is this is this what you're talking about? This is graphene so In Some the morph of the graphite in your pencil You know they talked it is sheets of carbon atoms quite a bit like this only loosely linked to other sheets So it's it's most of its bonds are all in the horizontal plane like these planes up behind us in the background There's a lot of different right, but there's lots and lots and lots of them stacked together Just loosely bonded together And that's why graphite is such a good lubricant because these these sheets will slide easily on one another and So some of it sticks to one surface some sticks to another surface than your surfaces slide very easily now What it seems sort of amazing, but people didn't realize of course there should be a way to get one of those sheets off Right and turns out that way is actually pretty simple if you take some graph some graphite like I'm doing here and Make a nice Heavy layer of graphite here So there's a lot of a lot of these sheets of carbon atoms sitting there right and then I take a piece of scotch tape Put it down here on the graphite and I pick it up. What do you see there? Can the camera see that I don't know if we can zoom in close enough. It's a little tiny Oh, that's what technology. Yeah, so that looks like right There's not a ring of carbon stuff and actually what you're seeing there are probably thousands of layers of Graphene and it's we're not really seeing anything there that you're actually probably have single layers of graphene There are places on this tape where single layers are stuck Yeah, and the a few years ago basically people figured this out that you can do that Literally almost this technique and then essentially carefully wash your tape away from this and you're left with these single layers of Graphene these single sheets like these again these hills behind us Single undulating sheets of carbon atoms all linked other carbon single layer of atoms one atom thick That's what I call nanotechnology. It is really thin and it's this it's exactly it's well put Jake It's that change in scale by making by having a material who has essentially zero thickness The properties of carbon are very different than they are in charcoal or in diamond, right? Every carbon atom if you think about this every carbon atom in a graphene sheet is exposed on two sides To the environment and that's a huge exposure And there's all kinds of ways it can bond all kinds of chances for things to react with it It's a very different material. This is porous. It is it's a set of little hexagons as the image Let's go back to the image for a minute. So You the image shows us those atoms are connected are those balls each one linking to three other Carbon atoms basically ball is an atom, right? Yeah, and the sticks there are the are the bonds holding them together And they form these vast sheets And so if something can happen it's porous in the sense that something can go through Within those bonds within the spaces in between there is some room Yeah, and or you can you can drop other things into that network Basically and create your own Control size pores if you want of a different size is is the sheet of carbon atoms strong Incredibly strong really these bonds are done very well. Yes carbon bonds very effectively to itself forms nice stable strong bonds They have calculated one of the most stable elements on the periodic table. It's exactly very stable It's underlies all life forms every version every biological molecule is everywhere and it is it's ubiquitous Find it without hardly look right, okay, so you asked in its strength Here's a beautiful example the guys who've got the Nobel Prize calculated this They said if you took a square meter sent you a square yard of a graphene sheet one atom thick mind you First off that way next nothing away less than a milligram less than a thousand of a gram That's less than one one thousandth of a percent the weight of a piece of paper that size and yet it could support as they say a cat Huh it weighing while weighing less than the cat's whiskers that she would support a cat. Okay. Yeah one atom thick That's pretty strong incredibly strong stuff, you know about a big cat Why did they pick a cat why not a dog? I think I think it's because it's of Schrodinger's cat, right? Alive and dead. Oh, yeah, but so and furthermore being only one atom thick This is two dimensionality gives a graphene some very interesting properties, right? It's it's this material, but instead of being three dimensional. It's only a really two dimension. Yes, and that makes it different Yeah, they're two dimensionality right right the fact that doesn't have that third dimension to it You can work with it control it you can focus it all right. Yeah, and now they do all kinds of things This this diagram that's on here now shows that they realize of course it can curve up and the material scientists now roll it into tubes Either a single wall of tubes will there is one layer and then you can stick other things down the middle of that too Oh, or you can loop it around sort of spiral up and have multi-layer They have the technology to do that to bend it that way in controlled ways now So you can build single wall nanotubes multi-wall nanotubes working on this 20,000 here all scientists across the country. I'm sure they're all excited. They all want to be like Bill Gates Yeah, yeah, there's all kinds of great stuff to the battery people are just one small facet of it They've got now. I think I think one of the newest Smartphones has come out with a graphene base touchscreen now. I mean it's starting to really get into the market in a big So what are the properties in terms of conducting electricity being a touch screen? So it's quite conductive. It has very good thermal conductivity very electrical conductivity. Yeah, you can you can so it's more than Batteries. Yeah. Oh, yeah batteries are just sort of one little piece of this stuff It's the strength that we care about well It's weird combination of properties. Yeah, and then you actually you can start what they call doping it You know sticking other atoms into the middle of it and begin to change those properties in very interesting ways GMO Adams But you know what you suggest though is that Carbon is one element on the periodic table, right? It might be other elements too that are also stable where we could do similar things am I right? Well, yeah, I mean there's always actually been this big question is why carbon? Yeah, why is everything all life forms based on carbon and there have been Speculations about a silicon-based life form. It shouldn't there be a silicon-based life form And may that may there be somewhere else in the universe a silica, but in silicon-based life for us How would they be the same and how would they be different? Silicon is very close to carbon on periodic table. It's very similar properties. So, yeah What's the what's the abbreviation for carbon see see and silicon si si I knew that Takes me back. That's not like CS. Okay, so what you know I think we should talk about all possible uses and I certainly I mean It's an important point that this is not the only use of batteries, but just hypothetically If it was an important use for humankind How how would it work? Well, how do you take the technology the science that's been developed by these 20,000 researchers and move it into? You know commercial utilization Well now no one really knows what how it's ultimately going to be used But yes, it's going to find its way into electronics and all sorts and types and ways. I probably will will become ubiquitous in electronics industry certainly in For for batteries it may get it finds way into these you were speaking importance of batteries earlier But but these things now the ultra capacitors So the problem batteries is course they can store a lot of energy, but they can't deliver energy very fast It sort of pulls out of them, right? Yeah capacitors can store a whole lot of energy release it all in a big burst But they don't last very long. Yeah, probably using graphene You can build a super capacitor a capacitor It'll be able to burst out powers and then high-speed battery and then be able to still feed you power for a long time after and send Off burst periodically, you know, let's take a burst for a minute and take a break burst break if you will Let's eat it now and we'll be right back. 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Hope you join us We're back So these guys these 20,000 scientists most of my crew are talking to each other and they're probably you know They're probably working all over the world to Understand about the lattice work. They can create that carbon lattice work than one atom thick But they can curve it and turn it and make it into tubes, maybe And that this all suggests because of the high conductivity of the super capacitor pop possibility That they can make super fast batteries. Wow So what would take Ethan what would take to get there well right now? It's it's still hard to make very big Amount to that although actually the carbon nanotubes they are now producing in multi-ton lots If you think these are things made out of one atom thick stuff like a ton. Yes, we're a lot of sheets Yes, we're a Three-foot by three-foot sheet way less than a thousand Thousands of a gram and they're producing the stuff in ton multi ton lots. Can I hold it like that? Yeah I mean they are they are beginning to get it in bigger forms more use. Can I see through it? Yes, it's quite it's quite transparent actually Wow, it's only one atom thick How big are the sheets? I mean could I don't know how big they can now make them? I don't know they can make a bread box What is I don't know they can now make a one meter by one meter sheet? I'm guessing up I don't really know that it's a very rapidly changing technology How do you lay one sheet on top of the other physically you just take one sheet put the top you could do that Yeah, and they take a scissors like you know scissors and you cut it This is all like arts and crafts with the the scotch tape and now the scissors But how do you put the energy into it? Well, I mean that's yes We have to have a connection from some power source into it basically through probably some more standard Conductor, you know like doing the grid somewhere, right? Yeah, that's probably something they're gonna research Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, you want you know the thing that connects on the side of a bunch of these sheets and Then I mean there must be all kinds of tricks tricks and best practices can to make this work But so you you put something on the side that clamps down on the sheets and it's contact with with every sheet somehow And then you feed a little tiny bit of electricity into that and then these sheets hold the electricity One sheet alone, right could hold some electricity But if you put a whole stack of them together, they're gonna hold a lot more Yeah, I don't I don't actually know enough about making batteries to understand exactly how you'd have to do it I suspect you'd end up separating your sheets again having something Molecularly that sits on some molecules that sit through on top of each sheet and keep the sheets slightly apart Yeah, so insulated from one another and you do some matrix some some yes Three-dimensional stack basically of these sheets, okay to begin to do it, but but I'll be on that I mean you're getting way out into obscure So now I heard it said that these sheets these this device this this this science Could power a cell phone for a week or two or three That means you could do it very small you can make a very small battery smaller than what we have lighter than what we have right yeah, yeah, but I mean of course the Sort of related to this is that the big thing now they're starting to work on is this so-called PSO electronic stuff where as you move love Stuff woven in your clothing whereas you move you'll be producing electrical power from the wrinkling and unwrinkling of your clothing Will actually be producing small amounts of electrical power which can feed your devices So your cell phone will be like just clipped to your shirt and it will be constantly recharging off your shirt Can I watch this? Oh, yeah, that'll be it'll be in fact, it's indestructible. I Can hold cats with it Well, this is unbelievable that means it's like we don't know the boundaries for this science yet, right? No, I mean there's there are all kinds of interesting pluses and of course there are the hazards people worry about What are the health impacts this stuff? What are the health impacts as far as people know basically again carbon pretty much is More or less. Okay. It's not really a harmful substance But the problem is again you get if you've got let us just imagine you have some of these little carbon nanotubes rolled up Yeah, and little tiny chunks of them say a micron long. So, you know Thousand nanometers long Those would make sort of fine dust that you could inhale and then they're like cold Yeah, then they're deep in your lungs. So good. It might not be good your lungs And they might be sharp enough they slip through and get into your circulation that and so there's a whole bunch of unknowns So we'd have to seal the battery. Yeah, we couldn't let that these the sheets live, you know People open people do already. I mean if they're producing ton lots of this stuff You know, there's a lot of it spilling around all over the atmosphere at this point And this is so far must be sort of expensive for the researchers to make it a big shit Yes, exactly, right and but again the price is just you know crashing down all the time as they're getting better and better control over the processes now, but I like to say that so far nobody has actually made a battery out of Graphene I don't think anyone's made any working commercial battery out of it. Yes I suspect a little laboratory prototypes. Yeah, yeah with proof of concept so that they actually can exactly exactly Well, I mean, you know, so this is worth researching to see what companies are actually involved in that Research, you know and see you see if you make a buck with that Oh, you know, I'm sure there are a dozen companies investing hundreds of millions of dollars each year at this point Basically, the market is just patent processes easy exactly configuration on that, right? So you gotta tell cell phones that's easy, right? But what about all the other batteries that we need for the grid for renewables going forward? This would be so disruptive. It would be take would take us to a whole new world of energy And it would change the the pace at which we develop renewable energy It would make fossil fuel irrelevant. Yeah, well, this is this is what this thing I mentioned is artificial leaf People have looked at this and said this is really disruptive technology that the for one the materials They guys did this with our cheap just dirt cheap common stuff. Basically. There's nothing fancy fanciest thing as a as a tungsten compound and tungsten Basically pretty easy to get a hold of yeah, and that's tea. Yes Periodic table actually it's W. W. Sorry for Wolfram tungsten is W on the periodic table But anyhow So yeah That's gonna really if suddenly you don't need you have a sense of cheap way to turn sunlight into liquid fuel More likely directly Then what so has just give me a Just a general idea of how that works sunlight comes in it works much like an artificial leaf like a plant leaf Yes, like a chlorophyll, right? It's sucking up some water and pulling in carbon dioxide out of the air and then stringing carbon dioxide and Hydrogen molecules and some oxygen molecules all together making a big hydrocarbon molecule What kind of fuel do we get out of it? Don't say oil Well, no, but it sends you precursor of a boil of you know some some basic hydrocarbon that that's fundamentally you can burn Yeah, exactly and you're back to square one in terms of right You know, but now you're sucking the co2 out of the air to make this stuff When you burn it you put co2 back in so it's a balance It's like oil, but it only is done instantly instead of over thousands of years exactly Who's working on this? It's right now just just in a laboratory stage, but but it's just just came out Really this I think this week in science Article funding just got published. I've been hearing a little bit about this for a few weeks But science the general science, you know And it does it as a at a reasonably I forget what the figure was but it's something like 10% efficiency I mean, it's it's really better than the plants do it plants operate typically at three maybe five percent their most Efficiency and this already is a 10% in the prototype stage and when suspects will make it a lot better And that's way better than a solar cell But you've got to have the device to actually burn the fuel Well, yeah, but and change that into electricity, right? But that's the the beauty of it though is sort of like a battery I mean you're getting you're getting something out of it that you don't need the Sun anymore, you know Yes, it just keeps making it more and more fuel for you when it is sunny. It's perpetual. Yeah, no effort Yeah, you don't have to put anything in really sunlight. Yeah, it's just harvesting sunlight. Yeah, that's yeah I mean that's what we have we have plenty of orient on this earth God, we should all be alive and stay alive long enough to enjoy the incredible benefits You know, it's not just that this will replace fossil fuel is that when we fix these will be, you know fully realize these technologies We will be able to use renewables and deliver energy more efficiently and cheaper than ever before Exactly, and I think the axiom is clear that if you can get cheap electricity, you have a better civilization Yeah, if you make energy plentiful readily available and inexpensive for everyone Things just thrive people people thrive. They've got lights at night. They can you can see can step you can read You know, you can cook your food. You can clean your water You know you can desalinate water if need be. I mean, it's suddenly the world is your oyster. Yeah, so no I mean, I agree you're the people who build a better battery or basically figure out a better energy source Let me ask I mean suppose we have graphene everywhere. I don't know if it gives off heat Maybe it does Not as a Battery but batteries can get hot. Yes And I don't know whether these graphene batteries would Would generate maybe maybe it's a better, you know, better combination than a regular, you know, let acid battery Anyway, what what if I give you a world with graphene a world where every cell phone every small device Every power station every solar installation on every home is all You know covered by batteries using graphene. What what effect do you think there would be sort of? You know the environment Climate change on our lives together. Yeah, I mean what what you're talking about it is essentially A way of really reducing the carbon footprint effectively to zero for for civilizations and then then we can really actually have some hope of sort of stopping the Incredible trajectory work we're on with our unfortunate geoengineering experiments that we're we're doing as a civilization Accidental geophysical engineering. Yeah, exactly large-scale experiments. There's no clue about the the variables involved I've been reading a book called pacific by Simon Winchester used to be with the east-west center and one of the stories is the us's adventures and Incidental experiments with the hydrogen bomb and in you know your area of the west Pacific and it's terrible what we did We have to we have to do better. This could be doing better This could change the world and we should all live long enough to have it and You know and enjoy the benefits of it and I want to be around. I want to follow it with you I want to follow with you. Excellent. Excellent. I look forward to exploring it further. Yeah, keep keep keep in touch with it And you know check it out in the journal science and elsewhere We do that's that's Ethan Allen. He's our chief scientist and he's also the host of this show Michael will science and we've been talking about graphene and and the new leaf. What do you call that? The new artificial not a car It's an artificial leaf that makes fuel. We're gonna talk more about this. We're gonna cover these stories going forward. Thanks for watching