Both 2010 Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry went to Carbon



Granular Carbon

After 14 years, this year was also a carbon year. The Nobel Chemistry and Physics prizes went to carbon related research: Palladium catalyzed carbon - carbon bond formation (Heck, Suzuki and Negishi couplings) and graphene, respectively. My 2009 guess included Andre Geim as a potential Chemistry laurate but he seems happier with the Physics prize.

Somehow I'm pleased with this year's results, unlike last year and the previous one. Don't know why.

Catalysis and carbon will continue to receive more prizes as hydrocarbon research is gaining momentum these days.

Mark my words..

Graphene is a Runner-Up in Science Magazine's Breakthrough of the Year

"Graphene takes off" Science magazine says in the last issue of 2009. "Since 2004, when researchers in the United Kingdom discovered a simple way to peel the single-atom-thick sheets of carbon atoms off chunks of graphite, researchers have scrambled to study this ultimate membrane." That UK researchers would be Andre K. Geim and his coworkers (aka "the duct tape gang").

This was only the beginning.

"Graphene is the strongest material ever measured"

The July 18th issue of Science has an interesting report on Graphene. Lee et al., (from Hone group at Columbia) report that the intrinsic strength goes up to _int = 130 gigapascals when they scan the single layer of graphene. Carbonaceous materials keep getting more interesting.

Photo reduction of Graphene Oxide with nano-TiO2

In the articles ASAP of ACS Nano, Williams et al., (from Prashant V. Kamat group - he is also the senior editor of Journal of Physical Chemistry) describes a neat way of reducing the o.6 nm thick graphene oxide with photo activated nano TiO2 (2-7 nm). Graphene is becoming very attractive to many and surely this is another example of that. In the picture, GO means graphene oxide and GR means graphene.

Cutting graphene with in-situ formed iron (Fe) nanoparticles

Datta et al. (from Johnson group of UPenn) utilizes iron nanoparticles (~15 nm) and the catalytic formation of methane from carbon and hydrogen in the scission of the thin graphene layer. Iron nanoparticles are formed by spraying iron nitrate (Fe(NO₃)₃.9H₂O) onto the graphene and cooking it under reductive Ar atmosphere (Ar + H₂). This is an important step in graphene related technology though it very much resembles the 2006 carbon nanotube seeds study (noted for placing Rick Smalley as the first author since it was published soon after his death). In the images, FLG is Few-Layer Graphene and the scale bar is 800 nm.

Graphene, a (relatively) new material

A 2D material (although argued recently), one of the layers of the graphite solid, graphene was isolated a few years ago by Novoselov et. al and proven useful for its electrical properties.

In the rise of graphene, Novoselov group (graphene.org) reviews advances and things that we can do with or without graphene indicating "unusual electronic spectrum" graphene presents.

The creepy thing about their original paper is that it has so many 6s as referring numbers. Starts at page 666 in the volume #306 and issue #5696. It has 16 references and as of today cited by 266 articles. The beast is upon us! :)