A Second Mention Of Graphene,

on the same day!

we all know that ice comes in cubes, but what I did not know until today was that only 17 different phases, or forms of ice have been observed on a molecular level, new research out of the U.K. suggests there might be an 18th form under very specific conditions, cubes or squares are the new shape of ice, it turns out that when you sandwich a droplet of water between two sheets of graphene at 10,000 times atmospheric pressure (one atmosphere is the pressure of the atmosphere at sea level), the atoms in the water molecules will straighten themselves out into a perfectly square grid, foregoing their favored snowflake shape for something that looks more like graph paper,

you can see the ice form in the video, usually when water freezes into ice, the atoms in water rearrange themselves into a hexagonal or tetrahedral lattice, which repeats over and over again, forming a natural crystal, but in high pressure situations, water apparently takes on different forms, "What's really odd about it is, it loses this tetrahedral structure," researcher Alan Soper told NPR, "That is the thing that's quite surprising, because I don't think it's been observed before." graphene, never heard of it until this morning, then I read about it twice!

'Whiskey Is For Drinking,

water is for fighting,

is one of the many quotes which show just how precious this liquid is, a lack of fresh, potable water is a looming crisis as the human population grows, indeed, the UN suggests that “water scarcity is among the main problems to be faced by many societies and the World in the XXIst century.” which may seem strange as so much of our planet is covered by it, the problem is removing salt from it to make water drinkable and as a resource to grow food, normally a process called osmosis is used, water is past through a membrane which allows water molecules through but not salt molecules, an expensive and wasteful way to produce water, the stumbling block has been the membrane that the pure water has to pass through, you may not think the situation is serious, but these figures for the 2014 market for reverse osmosis (RO) membranes and system components may change your mind, the market is expected to reach nearly $5.4 billion by year end, and is predicted to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.5% to reach $8.8 billion by 2019, but there is some good news on the horizon, now a new membrane has been found, 

Graphene, a new material discovered in the past decade, has attracted enormous attention for a variety of applications ranging from quantum computing and solar cells to smart phone screens and condoms, and garnered its discoverers a Nobel Prize in 2010, consisting of just a single layer of carbon atoms, it is as thin as a material can be while also maintaining remarkable strength, 150x that of steel and flexibility, all of which make it an excellent candidate as a desalination membrane, new work reported this month has now shown that graphene is punctured by nanoscale holes, those that can admit water while excluding salt ions and is indeed an efficient means of filtering seawater, in fact, the graphene nanopore film was able to achieve nearly 100% salt exclusion while also maintaining a higher rate of water passage than comparable technologies, is this the answer to the worlds water shortage? I do not know but it is a step in the right direction, enough seriousness for today, the next post will be a little more light hearted!

Researchers From The Hong Kong University Of Science And Technology,

 have made an amazing break through,

a new prototype lenses can successfully monitor changes in intraocular pressure ( the pressure within the eyeball), photograph BBC the new prototype lens can change in shape to monitor the changes within the eyeball, as the Conversation details:

The continuous monitoring provided by the contact lens could come in handy for people suffering from glaucoma. This lens can monitor changes in intraocular pressure throughout the day, and can responsively release drugs to alleviate the glaucoma. A similar lens, called Sensimed Triggerfish, has received regulatory approval in the United States and Japan.

Thanks to the ubiquity of electronic devices, we are currently living in a world constantly bathed in electromagnetic radiation. Although a clear consensus is absent, studies have pointed out that exposure to electromagnetic radiation could possibly induce some effects in human tissue. Engineers in South Korea have applied a layer of graphene to contact lenses to help shield the eyes from electromagnetic radiation. The thin graphene layer also reduces dehydration, what an amazing invention being able to monitor eyeball pressure changes throughout the day.

Did I Read That Correctly?

a plastics stronger than steel!

images courtesy of MIT the materials yield strength, or the force it takes to break it, is twice that of steel, although it has only about one-sixth of the material density, making it light, dubbed 2DPA-1, the material is light and mouldable like plastic but has a strength and resistance that the researchers behind the project liken to steel and bulletproof glass, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers envision 2DPA-1 being used in the near future as a coating to enhance the durability of objects, and eventually as a structural material, "We don't usually think of plastics as being something that you could use to support a building, but with this material, you can enable new things," said MIT chemical engineering professor Michael Strano. "It has very unusual properties."

2DPA-1 is a polymer, a category of substance that encompasses all kinds of plastics, but whereas all other polymers grow in one-dimensional chains, with new molecules being added onto their ends, 2DPA-1 grows in two dimensions, forming a sheet called a polyaramide, "Instead of making a spaghetti-like molecule, we can make a sheet-like molecular plane, where we get molecules to hook themselves together in two dimensions," Strano said, it is this two-dimensional quality that gives 2DPA-1 its strength, by eliminating the gaps that exist between polymer chains in other plastics, the engineers synthesised 2DPA-1 using a new polymerisation process that happens spontaneously in the right chemical solution, they have published their findings in a paper in the journal Nature. because of the material's closed molecular structure compared to other plastics, it is impermeable to water and gases, so it offers an extremely high degree of protection from oxidation, rust or rot, "This kind of barrier coating could be used to protect metal in cars and other vehicles, or steel structures," said Strano, another promising quality of 2DPA-1 is that it can be easily made in large quantities, this means that unlike with some recent wonder materials, such as graphene, it should be easy to scale up manufacturing outside of the laboratory, the MIT researchers made their 2DPA-1 in beakers, but to make the plastic in large quantities, they say you would simply need to increase the amount of starting materials, similar to other plastics, 2DPA-1 is manufactured at room temperature, so it doesn't require vast amounts of heat, what an amazing appliance of science!