[HN Gopher] Producing graphene in bulk using waste food, plastic...
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       Producing graphene in bulk using waste food, plastic and other
       materials
        
       Author : anchpop
       Score  : 31 points
       Date   : 2022-03-02 21:21 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (news.rice.edu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (news.rice.edu)
        
       | Gravityloss wrote:
       | Awesome!
       | 
       | I wonder if the walls are made of graphene reinforced concrete,
       | if I drill some holes, how dangerous is it?
        
         | zdragnar wrote:
         | With or without graphene, if you're drilling holes into
         | concrete without a mask, you're gonna have a bad time. Rock
         | dust, mineral dust, even wood dust from a saw are all
         | carcinogens when inhaled.
         | 
         | I imagine the danger isn't significantly increased unless the
         | graphene is layered thickly enough that the concrete doesn't
         | bond all the way through it. Either you're worried about
         | concrete dust, or you are worried about graphene dust. Concrete
         | dust with bonded bits of graphene are going to be the same
         | physical size as concrete, so I wouldn't expect it to be
         | significantly more dangerous combined.
        
           | Gravityloss wrote:
           | Of course I'm wearing a mask when drilling into a concrete
           | wall. Nevertheless the question stays.
        
       | agumonkey wrote:
       | some people working in the field said it wasn't proven to be
       | graphene (disagreement on methodology basically) and that it
       | wasn't replicated
        
       | croes wrote:
       | Is it a good idea to burn food instead of turning it to compost?
        
         | hosh wrote:
         | That was my thought too. There's some hard-to-compost stuff ...
         | but I think those are still more valuable as biochar than
         | graphene, from an ecological perspective.
         | 
         | The flip side is, I wonder if this could be scaled down to a
         | home device for processing plastics. It doesn't even have to
         | produce graphene.
        
           | emteycz wrote:
           | Where do you live that compost is less available than
           | graphene? I'd love to move there, it's a wonder material that
           | seems close to magic and I'd love to use it for my tech
           | products. Where I live, there are absolutely zero risks
           | whatsoever of running out of compost even if we converted
           | _all_ disposed food to graphene - but were very much lacking
           | graphene, especially of the cheap and large scale variety.
        
       | turnerc wrote:
       | [2020]
       | 
       | Ben from NightHawkInLight has a good "DIY" video on this:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Et8FEbCuCs
        
         | trhway wrote:
         | there is even a similar DIY, only using microwave generated
         | flash, on producing a [very small] artificial diamond from
         | graphite by what basically is CVD method
         | https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Make-a-Synthetic-Diamon...
         | which most probably would work for any source of carbon (the
         | people who don't like the low tech look of it may google for
         | respected scientific labs doing similar :)
        
       | hosh wrote:
       | I got mixed feelings about this. Food waste is valuable as
       | compost and can be put back into the carbon cycle, and I think
       | that is far more valuable than graphene in terms of ecology,
       | rather than the market.
       | 
       | Plastic, on the other hand, just sits there and we have not been
       | able to put it back into the carbon cycle. Turning them into an
       | advanced material like graphene is great.
        
         | Retric wrote:
         | Climate change is all about excess carbon, it ultimately
         | doesn't matter where it's coming from.
        
         | betwixthewires wrote:
         | There's an easy way to put plastic back into the carbon cycle:
         | burn it.
        
         | janj wrote:
         | Food waste ending up in the landfill is bad, produces large
         | amounts of methane. I imagine there will always be streams of
         | food waste that need to be diverted out of the landfill. In CA
         | you're no longer allowed to throw food waste in the trash bin,
         | it must be composted. I don't think that option is available
         | everywhere. Having a variety of options should help divert food
         | from ending up in a landfill.
        
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