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Scientists Turn Tequila Into Diamonds
MaxwellEdison writes "Researchers, oddly enough from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, have found a way to make diamond films using tequila. They were originally testing methods of creating the films with organic solutions like acetone when it was noticed the ideal ratios of water and ethanol turned out to be about 80 proof, or 40% alcohol. '"To dissipate any doubts, one morning on the way to the lab I bought a pocket-size bottle of cheap white tequila and we did some tests," Apátiga said. "We were in doubt over whether the great amount of chemicals present in tequila, other than water and ethanol, would contaminate or obstruct the process, it turned out to be not so. The results were amazing, same as with the ethanol and water compound, we obtained almost spherical shaped diamonds of nanometric size. There is no doubt; tequila has the exact proportion of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms necessary to form diamonds."'"
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It's hard to get 100% pure ethanol because ethanol is hygroscopic. This is part of the problem with using pure ethanol in vehicles (water ends up in your fuel without proper precautions), and why butanol may be a better choice for fuel.
Also, I'm not sure why nobody's mentioned it, but vodka is about the closest you can get to a 60%-40% water/ethanol mixture. Very few if any extra chemicals. Why use tequila instead of vodka?
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In simple distillation it is impossible to get 100% ethanol. The highest purity you can get is 95.6% ethanol and 4.4% water because ethanol/water is an azeotrope. There are several ways to get pure ethanol, one of which is to add compounds like benzene which makes it unsuitable for human consumption.
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This isn't the first time something like this has been done. Northern Blots involve the detection of RNA bound to a membrane by hybridizing it with a complementary radioactive RNA probe. Two things, to prevent non-specific binding of the probe to the membrane you need to block it with some inert protein. Powdered milk is a cheap convenient source of protein. In order to do they hybridization at a lower temperature, a little alcohol is used.
Anyway, some genius figured that since Bailey's Irish cream contains milk and alcohol, you could use it in your hybridization buffer. Apparently it worked, it's even been used for published results. Generally formamide is used instead of ethanol these days, and the dry milk works just fine. Still, it's a clever way to get your liquor funded by your grant. ;)
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Tequila is a form of Mezcal, so you were probably just confused.
Tequila and Diamonds might not work, but inflating sure does!
Possibly related to that, water and alcohol form an azeotropic mixture. In practice this mixture (of about 95%alcohol and 5% water) is the closest to pure ethanol you can achieve through distillation.
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That's kind of like skydivers' responses to the "why jump out of a perfectly good airplane?" jokes - "have you seen the airplanes we're jumping out of?".
A few years back I was in Mazatlan with friends, and checked out tequilas in the local liquor store. The range of selections explained why one of the local restaurants was pouring the stuff like water - the cheap stuff was about $5/gallon. If you wanted Cazadores or drinks at a fancy bar, you still had to pay real money, but if you wanted ethanol that had been aged in plastic for no more than 15 minutes, and didn't have to pay US-level or Europe-level alcohol taxes, it doesn't actually cost that much to make.
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The reason 70% is used is because purer alcohols dehydrates the bacteria and causes them to go into a sporuative phase and more difficult to kill. Ethanol, EtOH is sometimes denatured with methanol and sometime with other alkanes like heptane. EtOH typically comes out of the still at 190 proof or 95%, if memory serves me correctly you can get it up to 98% with additional treatment but it's expensive.
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it's a spoof of old DeBeers commercials. They showed shadows of the people, with a real non-shadow diamond ring. The man gave the woman a diamond, and she was all happy and kissed him. And there was much rejoicing.
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Except, you know, these diamonds formed at 800 degrees according to the article. That's above any sane cooking temperature. They burn at ~1500 in air, but can be heated higher with a boric acid coating. So, no, there's no problem using diamonds on cookware.
Many people don't know this, but one of the *common* methods of diamond collection is to place a bucket around one's indentured slave and force them to crawl on their hands and knees in a line, placing the extremely common diamond into the bucket around their neck. It is said the noise is like that of a machine gun from the diamonds hitting the bottom of the buckets.
Diamonds are so common, it is death to pick up a diamond outside purview of your employer. Otherwise, the market would be at risk of saturation - completely destroying the value and myth of diamond scarcity. Diamonds are literally as common as come pebbles in your area.
To be absolutely clear, diamonds are not a scare, precious gem. Their supply is completely and utterly, artificially controlled. Before the 1940's, outside of major industry, nobody gave a crap about diamonds. It was only after one of the most brilliant marketing campaigns by DeBeers were diamonds suddenly highly sought after. And their value is solely, artificially controlled by supply and DeBeers' artificial rules of diamond quality and scarcity (the 4-C's).
Two facts you should know about diamonds. Man made diamonds are vastly superior to naturally occurring diamonds and they are vastly cheaper than the artificially maintained price of non-industrial diamonds. And by "man made", I am not referring to CZ-diamonds. And two, diamonds by DeBeers are directly responsible for Apartheid in Africa. This is why they are often called, "blood diamonds."