Battery recipe: Deep-fried graphene pom-poms
In Korea, the work of materials scientists is making news worldwide this week, following publication of their article, "Spray-Assisted Deep-Frying Process for the In Situ Spherical Assembly of Graphene for Energy-Storage Devices," in Chemistry of Materials. Its eight authors used a spray of graphene oxide into hot solvent to form pom-pom-like particles suitable for electrodes and discussed the results of their spray-assisted deep-frying process. "A simple, spray-assisted method for the self-assembly of graphene was successfully demonstrated by using a high temperature organic solvent in a manner reminiscent of the deep-frying of food." Pratchi Patel, in Chemical & Engineering News, presented a detailed explanation of their accomplishments, saying they constructed round, pom-pom-like graphene microparticles by spraying the graphene oxide droplets into a hot solvent. Their process was like deep-frying. The technique could provide "a simple, versatile means to make electrode materials for batteries and supercapacitors, possibly leading to devices with improved...